Healing Blood
by BellaWriter7
Summary: Post DAG, one vision of how Sookie and Eric find one another. Can Sookie recover from her torture? Is Eric trustworthy? Will their bond survive? Rated M for a reason. Some OC. Lemons galore.
1. Chapter 1: I Will Not Be Denied

A/N: This is my first-multi-chapter fan fiction, so please don't hesitate to offer constructive thoughts on plot and how Sookie, Eric, Pam, Bill, etc., might really act based on the books. Also, since I'm new to this, I don't understand what all the terms mean (AU/AH, etc.). Anyone want to enlighten me?

This story takes place post-Dead and Gone and is my imagining of how Eric and Sookie might mend their relationship. You know they want each other. Or at least I do. Thanks for reading, and plese comment!

Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to any of these characters. I'm just grateful to Charlaine Harris for her willingness to create them and share them with the world.

Eric's POV

The stench of human drinks and human desperation burned my nose. The racket of the bar was high tonight. It was a Saturday, a customarily busy night, as well as the night when the most tourist buses arranged their visits. I had ordered five of my area vampires to present themselves to the masses tonight and they were sitting in various stages of boredom and arousal, as fangbangers and tourists milled about them.

I sat alone and tried to drown out the stench. So many bodies, in such close proximity, rubbing up against one another, transferring scents until one human is indistinguishable from another. Vermin, indeed.

There had been only one--just one human who had ever distinguished herself from this mass around me. As I had done so many times, I allowed my mind to wander back to that night, the night when something changed in my world. I shift in my seat, allowing my long legs to splay out in front of me, absently kicking the pathetic, drawn creature at my feet. In my mind's eye, she is walking in all over again. Tight, white dress, tiny red flowers sprinkled across it like so many delicate drops of blood, low neckline offering me a suggestion of her magnificent breasts and emphasizing her elegant, long neck. Oh a neck to be fondled and teased, throbbing with that rich blood.

I clinched my jaw, clicking and unclicking it in frustration. It was true: In my millennium on this planet, I have bedded thousands of women. A simple task, really. Assume a posture of kindness, retract fangs, look up steadily and send my mind into theirs. It was no challenge at all, not anymore. Like flipping a switch. One steady gaze, a few whispered lies, and their eyes glazed over and they would drape themselves across me, murmuring sweet words of devotion and baring their necks to me, spreading their legs for me.

Since the Great Revelation, it had gotten even easier. Now we were immortals in their midsts, danger personified, and there was a strain of self-hating female human that lined up to be used this way.

I would take these women, as often or as sparingly as I chose, depending on the quality of their blood, the sweetness of their sex. Occasionally, I found one I kept for a few weeks or even a year or two, her blood was so fine. But it was a passing fancy. Even the psychic.

I exhaled an unnecessary breath and glanced again around the room. One look, and any human in this room would be mine.

_Mine_.

I closed my eyes against the reality. Somewhere, 30 miles from this bar that teemed with willing and desperate women, lay my Sookie. _My_ lover, who refused to see me, who insisted that I had failed her by not rescuing her from the fairies Lochlan and Neave. She had no idea, and denied me the right to explain. The one woman whose brain resisted my influence and whose heart maddeningly did the same. She made me... work for her affection. She took my gifts grudgingly, allowing only the most practical. I scoffed. Gravel. A coat. A door. That was all. She refused even an invitation to my daytime resting place, unnecessary and reeking of my unaccustomed feelings for her. And she didn't want to know how I felt about her. I should have known long before Niall contacted me that she wasn't entirely a human woman.

She wasn't immune to my influence, it was true. She had succumbed multiple times, yielding to my hands, my cock, my demanding mouth. And she had not just yielded but kept up, challenged me, brought me to heel in a way I hadn't imagined in all my centuries of life. She had demanded, cried, directed. She had matched me, even then.

But why, then, wasn't she here? Why did she insist on keeping herself away from me? This punishment, surely, was more than I deserved. She must have no comprehension of her true value, to me or in the world. She must not understand what a rare flame of light she is in this dark night. She must be oblivious to the deep beauty of her body and the sweetness and lightness of her blood and the startling depth of her character. Just then, my hands remembered the feel of her breasts in them, the way her nipples nuzzled into my palms perfectly. Ahhh. Her hurried breathing had made her breasts heave against my palms, tracing tiny shapes there, burning themselves into my cool skin, making my hands clasp closed even now. I growled lowly to myself, a sound only audible to other vampires. Why was she so stubborn?

I closed my eyes and my hands clinched closed and open again. I bit down hard in frustration. A burn built in my chest, a familiar hunger.

I opened my eyes and surveyed the crowd once again. The women here, if I could call them that--the sheep, the cattle, waiting to be consumed--were always of two types. One, the gaunt V addicts hoping for a fix from a vampire stupid enough to share his blood with them. It almost never happened, but these women had been glamoured to within an inch of there mental capacity and believed, over and over, than they would find what they were looking for here.

The other type, the fangbangers in their gaudy goth outfits, painted false fang marks on their necks if they hadn't been fortunate enough that evening to have been claimed by a vampire who felt peckish. The ones who had wore their fang marks like a badge of honor: Vampire Approved. They had no idea that they were just a snack, junk food for a species that, like human themselves, had grown used to fatty, unsatisfying meals.

My Sookie, she was none of those things. She was exquisite--a five-course tasting menu, just hinting at her capacity for giving and receiving pleasure.

Just then, a blond flickered across the edge of my consciousness. I looked up in surprise. But it was only a plump blond woman with kewpie doll lips and wide hopeful eyes glancing at me meekly. Like the others, she was clad in a tight black dress that fell to the floor and pressed her small breasts together to create cleavage. I glared and she looked encouraged.

She would do.

With one glance toward Pam and an almost imperceptible nod in the blond's direction I stood, shaking off the fangbanger clinging to my leg like a barnacle, and cut through the crowd toward my office. A minute later, Pam followed, blond in hand.

I leaned back in the chair behind my desk and tented my fingers. The girl was already pink, the blood rushing to her surface like Pavlov's dog after the bell.

"Your meal, master?" Pam deadpanned. She gave me a pointed look and shook her head. She shoved the girl toward me and left the room, clicking the door shut behind her.

The girl stumbled, twisting her fingers together awkwardly. She tottered on her five-inch fuck-me pumps and tried to regain what I could only assume was her version of alluring submission. She clasped her hands behind her, thrusting her tiny breasts toward me.

"Master," she breathed, nearly mute with anticipation. "How may I serve you?"

She took in my frame, adorned in a black vest and jeans. I could smell her arousal and watched as she rubbed her legs together absently, seeking friction. She smelled off to me, soured. She didn't have Sookie's tantalizing bouquet. But she was rounded like Sookie, if a little larger. Her blond hair was limp, straw-like.

I grimaced.

"Take off your dress."

She practically glowed with pleasure. Ugh. This one.

She scrambled to pull the fabric over her head and expose herself to me. I appraised her. Her soft, rounded shoulders gave way to two tiny breasts constricted together and up in a black padded bra. Her waist was fleshy, spilling over her tiny black mesh panties, where I could see her excitement glistening even now.

"Turn," I commanded.

Her bottom was more fleshy, ballooning out into a dimpled, high derriere covered with a string of thong. Her legs jutted out in thick, curving blocks. If I cared--and I barely cared enough to note it--I was sure there would be some human man who would worship this body. But the sight of it made me angry. She was not my Bonded. She didn't have her tanned skin or her fleshy but smooth ass that curved perfectly into her shapely, delicate legs. I felt myself stiffen at the memory. Rage pooled between my shoulder blades.

"Come," I beckoned.

She turned and her eyes grew wide, confused. Her stubby fingers slipped under the mesh of her panties and stroked into her folds. Her eyes closed and she shivered.

"No," I barked. "Come _here_."

The color drained momentarily from her face as she stiffened. If she were my Bonded, I would have pulled her wet hand to my mouth and sucked, pressing my fang into one finger until a tiny bead of blood fell into my mouth. An amuse bouche. The thought of it made me growl.

The girl was in front of me now and breathing hard, her chest blotchy with blush.

I grimaced. I wanted to get this over with.

"Kneel."

She scrambled down onto her haunches as I reached down to my hard-on and unzipped my pants.

"Suck and I might bite you later," I growled.

When she hesitated, I added, "You may touch me."

She lunged at my cock and immediately took the head into her mouth. Despite myself, I hissed and threw my head back. She licked and nibbled but I looked down in frustration. The mouth on me wasn't plump and glistening the way Sookie's did, though it was warm enough and wet enough. The hair didn't glow with sunshine. The breasts below weren't magnificent. Ah those breasts again. They had been my undoing. Finally feeling them in my hands, in my mouth. My fangs ran out at the memory and they itched to bite down around her nipples and draw, sucking her pebbled nipple and exquisite blood into my mouth as one. An amazing first course. I could lick and bite at them for hours. And just then, I swore to myself I would do that again. I would be in my Bonded's yellow flowered bedroom and I would suck her breasts and nipples until she was screaming my name.

Oh gods, just the thought of it made my cock grow larger and twitch. I growled. The girl between my legs moaned. I looked down absently. I had nearly forgotten she was there but for the mild relief she was providing. I put my hand on her neck, her coarse hair irritating my palm, and pressed her further down onto me. _I am not hard for you_, I wanted to tell her. _You are a sad, small substitute for the exquisite gift that is my Bonded. You do not suck my cock as well as she. Your murmurs and moans mean nothing to me._

Just my Bonded.

Any little groan from her lips could and did make me hard. The swimming wetness of her sex ignited me. I groaned at the memory and thrust my hips up, holding the girl's head down onto me so I could use her mouth. Sliding into Sookie's sex was a rare treat. She fit. I fit. Her wet folds beckoned to me, her blood plumping her slick opening appealingly, the blood of her femoral artery hammering at my cheek.

Dear gods, her sex. To thrust into her, to hear her whimpers and cries. Her need. She had needed me, I thought with gratification. And she still did, I knew it. She was _mine_. _My_ bonded. _My_ lover. O to fuck her, I thought as I grunted, my head growing larger. To bite her, and feel that extraordinary blood flood into my mouth. I moaned in need, my balls tightening, preparing. To rub myself all over her. To mark her with my scent. To proclaim her mine. To have her, always.

Ah. Ah. My hips bucked and my seed flew into the girl's mouth.

When it was over, I let the girl up. She was leaking and snot was running out of her nose and my cum drooled from her mouth. My stomach lurched, in hunger and disgust. On my Bonded, such a look was a supreme gift--though I would not hold her down as forcefully as this bloodbag.

Speaking of.

"Stand."

She did I caught her gaze with mine. Her mind was easy to take, as pliant as soft wax. I put my hands on her shoulders and said softly, "I will not fuck you, and you may not touch yourself. But you may cum when I bite you. You will not remember this. When I am done feeding, you will gather your gown and leave out the back entrance and you will not come back here."

Her glazed eyes registered understanding and she nodded.

"Turn," I commanded. I couldn't bear her eyes any longer--not the eyes of my beloved. I seethed. I caressed her neck with the back of my hand. She shivered and tilted her head to offer herself to me more. Biting here might be more pleasurable for us both and it was certainly easier. But I didn't want to give her bragging rights. This was nothing to be proud of.

I lifted her arm--not the soft, shapely arms of my bonded--and licked at her sour pit, bringing her artery into sharp relief. She was panting in anticipation, moaning incoherently. I could barely stomach this, but my hunger was great.

I grazed my fangs along her vein, checking its readiness. The blood pumped faster. I latched on and pressed, sucking the coppery wetness into my mouth. It had a vaguely wooden flavor, damp and rotted, as if she'd been eating too many mushrooms lately. It had none of the lightness and depth of Sookie's blood and I almost couldn't choke it down. But I would not be denied. Sookie could avoid me, but I wouldn't waste away while I waited. I drew angrily on the little wounds, taking mouthful upon mouthful of the putrid stuff.

I felt the girl's legs buckle as she writhed with orgasm and I held her up to suck greedily from her. _I will not be denied. I will not._

Slowly, I relented. If I wasn't careful, I would drain her, and I couldn't afford another run-in with the law. I'd already glamoured my way through a dozen police officers, and everyone in the bar had seen Pam bring her to me.

So I stopped and allowed the girl to slump to the floor.

I stood, tucked myself back into my jeans and left the room.


	2. Chapter 2: Haunted

A/N: Thanks for all the kind reviews in just one day. Like I said on my author's profile, I woke up with this story in my head and felt the need to keep working on it today. So, already a new chapter. As a warning, there are no lemons in this chapter. Since this story is called "Healing Blood," I figured we had to know what Sookie (and Eric) are healing from. I figured one chapter really laying out how bad of shape Sookie was in would be appropriate. Don't worry, I'm already hatching the next chapter, and trust me, it's lemony.

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Disclaimer: I don't own these characters. They belong to Charlaine Harris, and I continue to be grateful for them.

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**Chapter 2: Haunted**

Sookie's POV

A rattling woke me from fitful sleep--the only kind of sleep I ever seemed to get these days. It sounded for all the world like the demented laughter of Thing One and Thing Two--dry and atonal and totally out of place for the situation. Without really coming out of my sleep, with my eyes still closed, the memory of that cackle summoned an image of their razor-sharp teeth, which in turn set my legs and softer spots to aching and suddenly, I swore I smelled the dankness of that dark room, that long, insanely painful hour when I was truly defenseless and alone. The shame, the rage, the fear welled up in me all at once, and the screaming started as it always did. Bile rose in my stomach and I thought I might be sick. Again. I flailed my arms, trying again to free them from the tight leather they'd wrapped around my wrists. My hand flung out and hit something, which crashed to the floor.

That's when I opened my eyes. The white and yellow curtains hung immobile from the rods above them. The rattle came again, and suddenly I knew what it was. The old single-pane windows shook in their frames. The wind was blowly lightly outside.

Nope, no Thing One or Thing Two. Everything looked ordinary.

Or as ordinary as my life could get these days.

The fact of it, of my life, bubbled again to my surface and the screams turned to sobs.

You know, there was a time, before all this vampire shit, all these fairies and shifters and Weres, when I could just cuddle up at home and read a romance novel or a mystery, put on a little Shania Twain, and relax on the couch. There was a time when Gran would have made me my favorite chicken and dumplings when I was sad like this. Well, maybe not like this _exactly_. My life didn't get this crazy until after she was gone.

My heart sank some more and I clutched my bandaged leg again. Gran _was_ gone. Dead and gone, killed by some half-crazed vamp-hater who thought she was me. Claudine was dead, her little unborn baby, too. Tray was dead, trying to defend me. Bill might as well be finally dead, he was so sick with silver poisoning. Great Grandfather wasn't dead but was gone anyway--gone to the fairie realm, closed off forever. Amelia, heartbroken, had gone back to New Orleans, flooded home or not.

I ran my hands helplessly over my swollen face, coating my fingers in tears. A keening wail ripped up my raw throat and I didn't think I could yell anymore. Voice or not, I was yelling.

I curled to my side, clinching together despite the pain that tore through my side and back--stitches, I knew from past experience, tearing open again. It said a lot about what Thing One and Thing Two had done to me that even Eric's blood that day hadn't fully healed these wounds.

Eric.

My breath caught mid-sob and my chest burned. My heart lurched and folded in on itself and I sobbed anew, in a different, hopeless way. My back prickled with the knowledge: I was all alone. I _had_ been all alone, at my most desperate and most vulnerable. Despite all their bigger-than-yours, I-will-give-my-undead-life-to-her posturing, both Bill and Eric let Thing One and Two mutilate me. But I hadn't called Bill. I'd called Eric. More than called--I'd begged and pleaded and prayed to him like he was Baby Jesus himself. He'd never responded at all, not until I was safe and, I guessed, it was convenient. I guess that's what I got for worshipping false idols. Crying now was about as useless as calling for him had been, but I couldn't help it then and I was just as powerless over it now.

Rage welled up in me so strong that it overtook my arms. They started pounding on my bed, ripping the pillows from under my head, and flinging them around the room. Something crashed and broke. I could feel the cold slither over me. The cold knowledge that I needed him. And he was nowhere. At that moment I was lost. Adrift. Unguarded. Unsafe. Probably unloved. A fissure broke open in me that had just barely sown itself shut. I threw myself with force against my headboard, against the wall and vaguely felt the shape of a new bruise forming on my shoulder. I rocked my fists into the walls until I heard a crack, a cold sound that sent my mind keening to a higher frequency of panic. I knew that sound all to well now: The sound of my bones breaking. A sob wracked me, and I was grateful for about the 100th time today that I lived alone in a field, my only neighbors the dead in the cemetery and the undead beyond. It seemed appropriate. After all, I was hardly living.

The rage flickered out, leaving me spent and ragged. I drifted to sleep, tears gluing my eyelashes together tight.

***

When my eyes slid open again, sunlight spread through the room, making it appear ordinary. Same chair, same dilute sunlight (that's the last word from my Word of the Day Calendar I can remember). The ordinariness of it weighed on me. Another day. It would be no different than the last few weeks since I'd come home. Since I'd come home and Eric had abandoned me. I thought I might be sick, but I knew there was no food in my system, anyway. Nothing to go.

But as I became more alert, I saw that the room _was_ different. My lamp and alarm clock were on the floor, the lamp base and bulb shattered into a million tiny pieces. Just looking at them made the scabs on the soles of my feet ache. My pillows were all around the room and I was suddenly aware of new pains. My neck hurt from sleeping without a pillow. Again. My shoulder throbbed. I picked up my left hand and examined it. It was swollen and purple. I remembered the sickening cracking I'd heard last night and breathed deep to try to hold down the rising panic. Add that to the list, I guess.

Instead of cleaning it up, I just slid off the opposite side of the bed and walked gingerly toward the bathroom down the hall. My bathroom was blocked by all those shards, and I wasn't up for bending and cleaning. The sound of my feet in the hall was dry and soft, almost comforting. But when I hit a soft board with my toe, the creek of the wood sent panic up my spine and I cried out. My bones creeking as they played "how far can we bend Sookie's bones before they break?" I saw the room drop and was vaguely aware that I was lying on the floor. I could think only one thing, over and over. Help. Help.

***

An hour later, I found myself crumpled on the floor and my breathing was coming back to me, soothing and calming me. I climbed to my knees and made my way slowly to the bathroom, placing each limb carefully and watching for sounds and movements that might send me back into panic. I made it there and climbed onto the toilet, nearly bursting.

As I had for weeks now, the next thing I did was fill the tub. Sam had been sweet and bought out Walmart's whole supply of Epsom salts. They were no vampire blood, but they sure eased the ache for a few minutes. And the warm water soothed the way nothing else did.

I lowered myself in and rested. My head lolled back against the edge of the tub, my neck wincing at the angle. I dipped my bruised hand under the surface of the water and let the warmth envelop it. My shoulders relaxed, just a little bit.

This room, this was my sanctuary. It was one of the only rooms in the house that held only regular memories, from before Bill Compton walked into Merlotte's and I found myself in the middle of gore and violence. Even my own home was marred: The living room, where Eric and Bill had slaughtered a pack of Weres ready to kill me. The dining room and kitchen, where Debbie Pelt's brain coated walls and tables and the china cabinet. The kitchen and back steps, where that pirate had tried to burn me alive.

All I wanted was to get through the year without getting beat up, and here I was, black and blue, recovering from not just from a run-of-the-mill beating, but from torture. True torture. Supernatural, superhuman torture.

I shivered in grief, overwhelmed with what my life had become. There was almost nowhere I could go that didn't remind me of death. Just here, just this bath. I sighed, knowing I wouldn't have to go anywhere. That I could stay here, safe. I slid in further, burying myself in the water up to my lips, my hair floating around me.

****

When I woke again, I was shivering and my stomach was growling. I averted my eyes from my mangled body and reached stiffly and carefully to unplug the old tub. Immediately, the gurgling of the drain started sucking the water away from me. As the air hit my breasts, my arms, my stomach I felt even more exposed, more naked, if that was possible. I curled myself into a ball instinctively and sat there as the last of the water snaked from the tub. I wished again that some strong arms would lift me out of the tub and cover me with a soft fluffy towel, that soft lips would brush my forehead and a spoon would lift soup to my mouth. And I knew, in my heart, who I still hoped that person would be.

But I had sent everyone away. I had rescinded Bill and Eric's invitations to my home after they'd returned me here. I just didn't want to be anywhere near any vampires or any fairies or any weres for a long time. Sam was the only exception, and even he kept his distance at my request. I needed to be with _people_. Human people, people who might be judgmental and think I was crazy, but at least most of them didn't want to kill me. Unfortunately, I didn't have people. Amelia was still gone. My brother--well, he was a were now, too, and he was never much help. And there were, of course, humans who also wished me dead. Arlene had practically signed my death warrant. Jeez Louise, I paid my taxes, didn't steal and had never talked ill of anyone's momma. How did a barmaid from Bon Temps rack up so many enemies? My life was crazy. I felt exhausted again just thinking about it.

I hugged my knees one last time. OK, I told myself sternly. Gran did not raise me to be Poor Pitiful Pearl. Time to get up and feed myself. God knows why, but I was still alive and I didn't need to act dead. If that's what I really wanted, I was sure I could find a vampire or two to make it happen.

Slowly I rose, steadying myself against the wall. It didn't help that this old farmhouse, built and added to over 150 years, had sloping floors. I carefully lower my feet to the little rag rug Gran bought for this place probably when my dad had been around.

My Dad. My eyes stung with the threat of tears.

Nope, nope. I'm not going down that road right now. I could cry in my cornflakes all I wanted, but I had to get the cornflakes first.

I took the towel from the rack and wrapped it around me like a cape. The feel of it over my shoulders was heavy and warm and protective. I shuffled carefully into the kitchen, watching for that loose board and avoiding it.

Relieved, I made it in there and opened the freezer. Sam had stocked the fridge at the same time he bought the bath salts, so I had frozen pizzas and dirty rice and ice cream. The fridge had milk and bread and deli meat and some of Gran's preserves. I took the bread and the preserves, and the ice cream for later and shuffled to the counter. While the bread toasted, I looked out the window. My whole body felt heavy. The yard had that same look of pressing normality, except for the weeds I hadn't been willing to leave the house to remove. Just the thought of stepping outside this house--of picking up that trowel again--stole my breath and suddenly my chest burned and I was convulsing and clinging to the counter to hold myself upright.

No. I wouldn't be going out today.

The smell of burning brought me back to the here and now and I glanced down to see smoke wisping up from the slots in the toaster.

"Crap!"

I popped up the lever and the overcooked bread sprang up. Like everything else in this house, the toaster was inherited from my Gran. It might be time to replace it, I thought absently as I scraped the burned layer off the top and dolloped preserves onto it.

I scooped up the toast and the ice cream and a spoon and walked into the living room, stepping carefully. I'd hate to have to clean up all this food if I collapsed again.

I curled on my side, placing the bread before me on the couch, within biting distance of my mouth. I flipped on the TV and allowed the numbing sound of it to fill up the background, so that I didn't hear anything in my head. I chewed carefully and slowly and tried to just concentrate on the feeling of the rough bread and sweet preserves slipping down my throat. It was still raw from my terrors last night, and the bread caught on the way down. That pain, I guess I could deal with. The morsels laid uncomfortably in my stomach and I wondered when the last time was that I ate anything. I found I was starving and methodically worked my way through the rest of the toast and most of the ice cream.

Maury Povich was on TV, and it was oddly relaxing to observe the refreshingly human baby-mama dramas of the show. I laughed when one guy was announced the father who swore he wasn't and was rapt when one girl, no more than 17, crumpled in tears when it was announced that her boyfriend of a year wasn't the father of her baby. I didn't want to be in that house when the show was over.

I felt considerably cheered, more cheered than I had been in a while, when a knock came at the door. Just like that, I curled into a ball and found myself shaking. No. I didn't want to deal with anyone. It wasn't just that I didn't want to, I didn't think I could. I could barely move and my breathing liked to make me pass out.

"Miss Stackhouse," came the deep, authoritative voice at the door. I knew that voice. I searched my mind for it. Suddenly flashes of a tongue on my back, of searing pain, of hospital rooms and corridors flooded back. Dr. Ludwig.

"Just... Just a minute," I called, my voice a squeak. I looked down and realized I was still in my towel with the afghan pulled tight over me. "Uh, give me a minute."

I sat up and looked toward my bedroom. The hall. That floorboard. There was no way I was going to get there and back in less than an hour. I glanced to the door and back down at myself. Oh hell. She was a doctor. She had to be used to this.

I stood and wrapped myself tightly in both the town and afghan and walked carefully to the door.

I looked through the keyhole and saw nothing. "Are... are you alone?" I asked, and I knew from my tone that if someone had wanted to get me, I'd be dead meat by now.

"Quite alone, Miss Stackhouse," she intoned. "Will you let me in?"

OK. Fine. Here goes nothing.

I unlocked the door with shaky hands. I couldn't remember the last time I'd done this. Just the thought of outside terrified me. I gripped the nob and started crying again. I looked around frantically. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. It was just a door, for Pete's sake. Help, I cried silently. Help.

"Miss Stackhouse," came the words from the other side of the door. "Are you there?"

"Uh, I'm trying," I said, my voice high with panic. I about collapsed on this side of the door in frustration and fear. I rested my forehead against the wood and remembered how Eric had replaced this very door for me. Maybe Eric had sent Dr. Ludwig as well.

I twisted my wrist and my hand throbbed. Oh right. Where I slammed it on the wall last night.

The door opened with a click and I pulled it open just a little, and peered down at the tiny doctor. She seemed so nonthreatening, but that's what I had thought of every supe that had hurt me. I thought, appropos of nothing, that I'd never trust beautiful people again.

She gazed up at me appraisingly and furrowed her brow. I must have been standing there longer than I realized, because she put her hand gently on the door jamb and said softly, "May I come in, dear?"

I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. (That must be why I was starting to feel dizzy.) But her hand on my door jamb made me scared. Like she was being aggressive. She must have sensed it because she glanced down at her hand and removed it. She looked up at me as sweetly as she was capable.

Slowly, I nodded. I shuffled back, holding my body tight against the door the whole time, as if it would protect me from the tiny doctor.

When I'd opened it enough, she stepped through. "Thank you, dear." I quickly shut it and pressed my back against it, as far from her as I could manage. I glanced around the room looking for avenues of escape. Oh hell. I knew there weren't any. If I couldn't get from my room to the bathroom without crumpling to the floor for an hour, no way was I going to get through a visit with a supernatural creature and get away--not if she really wanted to get me. Despair flooded me.

I stared at her.

"Shall we sit?" she prompted.

I nodded again, but didn't move. I watched her carefully as she hopped up on the couch. With her legs dangling over the edges like a child, I found I couldn't stay quite as terrified of her as I had been. I took a step toward her and watched. And another step, until finally I was sitting on the far end of the couch, away from her.

We just stared at each other for a minute.

"Uh, can I offer you some water? Or something?" I asked, my manner kicking in. "I don't have any tea right now, and I'm sorry, but I don't think I'm up for making any."

"No, thank you, Miss Stackhouse. I'm here for your one-month checkup," she said, and pulled a file from her bag, along with a stethoscope and other medical implements. I couldn't say quite why, but the sight of them terrified me and I closed my eyes and breathed deep. How embarrassing. It was one thing to wail and moan on my own, but another thing altogether to not be able to look at a doctor's supplies without sweat beading up on me and my breath quickening. Again, I felt like everything in my body was out of control and I got mad.

And then her words sunk in. So it had been a month. I hadn't realized. How long had I been laying in bed? How was my electricity still on and my bills still paid? I couldn't remember the last time I opened the mailbox. That mailbox--all the way down the winding driveway out on Hummingbird Road. Yeah, not going out there anytime soon. Maybe Sam was getting my mail?

Dr. Ludwig led me through a usual battery of tests. (Ha. Battery. Not such a funny word anymore.) She tsked at my bruised hand and shoulder, and told me to explain the new wounds. She splinted my pinkie and told me I had fractured it.

But the worst was when I had to allow her to check my old wounds. Since the most painful ones were in my softest, most sensitive areas, and I was already terrified, I found myself tensing and holding my breath and desperately trying to staunch the tears that were spilling down my face. I looked away while she did it and focused on the fireplace. Go to your happy place, go to your happy place. I remembered sitting in front of it once, a fire burning soothingly, as one very confused vampire curled with me under it and talked and shared my life with me. I clutched my afghan tighter and, even though I knew it was ridiculous, I nuzzled my face into it and inhaled deeply, looking for his scent.

"Now then, Miss Stackhouse, how do you feel?"

I turned back to the tiny doctor in front of me. Unbidden, I smiled. Suddenly a giggle escaped my lips and my hand flew up to capture it. But I couldn't stem the tide. I had been standing and fell back against the couch, wincing as some jolt of pain rocked through me. I laughed out loud again. I open my eyes and looked at her. I knew I must look crazy: Lying here nearly naked, covered in bruises, stitches and a newly splinted finger, and laughing uproariously.

It felt good to laugh, even if I could feel I was going off my rocker and that a doctor was witnessing it. Maybe she would commit me and I'd end up in a home for the supernaturally insane. Surrounded by were-panthers that wanted to be were-rabbits. That made me think of Briar Rabbit, and that old story, and zippitydodah. I laughed harder. It released some kind of tension I didn't know I was holding, and even though I was still stiff, my muscles seemed to move around my bones in a more natural way.

When I could speak through my laughter, I said, "With all due respect, doctor, how do you think I feel? I was tortured by two psychotic fairies! I have stitches on my hoohah and scars on my legs! I have night terrors every night and haven't had more than three hours sleep a night for--what is it?--a month now. This morning it took me an hour to get to the bathroom because the floor squeaked."

To myself I added, people--supes--I loved died because of me. I had a list of enemies a mile long. My best friend moved out and may never speak to me again. I have no human friends, and the man I wanted most to save me in the world has abandoned me. Maybe he saw my mutilated body and didn't want me anymore. I remembered Thing One's statement. _As if any of them could be truly lovely._ That sobered me right up. I wasn't laughing anymore.

The doctor looked at me impassively. Now I was just angry.

"What kind of a stupid question is that?" I spit at her, forgetting my manners. Gran would have to forgive me this one. Angry felt way better than terrified. "_I don't feel good_. I'd say I feel pretty miserable."

Dr. Ludwig nodded and watched me.

I stared her down, but she just waited for me to calm again. When I did, she said in that gentle but authoritative voice doctors have, "My dear, you have been through a trauma. I am leaving you a prescription for Xanax, to ease your anxiety. If you are to heal, you must sleep. Please take one now. I also recommend you talk to this doctor. He specializes in helping human consorts recover from supernatural post-traumatic stress disorder. I'm no expert in that field, but he is among the best."

She thrust a card out at me and I just stared at it. Supernatural post-traumatic stress disorder? Was she making that up? Though I suppose that would be a good description of my predicament. I guess I'd just thought that I had ODed on supernatural drama. Maybe it's the same thing.

She placed the card on the table under the half-eaten pint of ice cream and put the bottle of pills next to it.

"He will be waiting for your call," she said. And then she gathered up her file and supplies and left.

As she headed out the door she stopped and considered something. She turned and held my gaze in hers.

"And if I may say, Miss Stackhouse, if you would take your vampire's blood, your wounds would heal much faster. Perhaps mentally as well as physically."

The door closed silently and I stood shocked, wrapped in my afghan. I wanted to yell after her: What vampire? I didn't have a vampire anymore. What I had was a house filled with the ghosts of weres and fairies and one amnesiac vampire I would never see again.


	3. Chapter 3: Longing

A/N: Thank you again for all the great reviews. If you made it through the last chapter, I wanted to reward you with a little lemony goodness. It's still angsty, but getting better--as Sookie is. I hope you enjoy it. And please comment!

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Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to these characters, except one Dr. Harold Eugenides. The rest belong to Charlaine Harris and I think she's great.

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**Chapter 3: Longing**

God bless Xanax. I had walked to my bedroom all by myself, and didn't collapse once, I thought with pride. After the good doctor left, I had followed instructions and downed a pill with the rest of the pint of ice cream. It took a while to take effect, but when it did I found that my panic didn't entirely disappear. The frequency of it did get turned way down, though.

I took the chance and walked to my bedroom slowly, to put on my sleep shirt with Tweety Bird on it and found my slippers. I'd even managed to make it back to the kitchen a little while later and made myself one of the frozen pizzas. Go Sookie. This was the most activity I'd had in a long, long while.

When I'd returned to the living room, I'd laid down and pulled the ice cream spattered card from the coffee table. (Sitting upright required more pressure on my lady bits than I could stand, and I didn't want to risk that pain reminding me of how it got there. I had a new goal now. I still didn't want to get beat up, but now I also just wanted to get through 24 hours without collapsing on the floor.) I looked the card over.

Dr. Harold Eugenides

Supernatural Psychologist

Just that, and a number. I stared at it for a long time, wondering if I could really have--what did she call it?--supernatural post-traumatic stress disorder. I also wondered where I'd get the money to pay. I'd finally been paid from Sophie-Ann's estate for my work in Rhodes, with a sizable bonus for saving all their hides, but it pained me to think of using it any more than I was already. I had been living on it since it became clear that one week off work wouldn't be enough, and it felt like it was dwindling fast. And with a nauseating stab of panic, I realized I'd have to leave the house to use his services. I glanced at the door and remembered the feeling of the cool wood on my forehead as I struggled to just open it a few feet to let the doctor in. And I wasn't even trying to step outside. I started sweating again at the memory.

That might be a dealbreaker for me.

But I looked at the card again and pressed its edge to my bottom lip, thinking. There was no doubt that I was in a bad way. I looked down at my splinted finger. I'd done that. I'd been hurt bad, worse than I ever thought I would be, and I'd survived. But now I was hurting myself, and I wasn't in my right mind when I did it. And some day--not today, Lord knows not today--but some day I might want to leave my house again. And I'd like to be able to do it under my own power and without sobbing. I looked at that door again and thought about how it got to be there, how I'd come home and they were installing it. Another little gift from Eric. My stomach fluttered and flipped and grew acid all at once. And then a deep sadness hit me and my body tensed, ready to convulse with tears.

But I held back. I was tired. I didn't have the energy to collapse again. I just wanted to stay put together in one piece for five minutes.

I pushed thoughts of Eric out of my head and looked at the card again.

After a slow trip to the kitchen to use the phone, I had returned to the couch. I'd never been much of a TV watcher, but I suddenly saw the comfort of it. It was like a friend nattering along in the background while I did other things--or mostly, just tried not to think. I napped on and off, which was a plain miracle in my book.

When dusk fell, I made myself some hot tea Amelia left behind and munched a few slices of deli meat as I headed to my bedroom.

And so now I was snuggled up under my covers, full (for once) and the closest thing to relaxed I'd been since before that fairy approached me in the garden so many weeks ago. I felt deeply weary, like some kind of raw thing. Road kill, almost, but alive. Just then, I thought of Maria-Star Cooper at the hospital. I had lied and said she'd been hit on the side of the road. No skid marks, I told them. That's how I felt. Like I'd been rammed by a semi, and there were no skid marks to indicate that anyone had even tried to slow down. My arms felt heavy.

And then I remembered the gruesome scene in Maria-Star's little apartment, and the phantasmagorical rerun of her last few minutes of life. I thought of her and Alcide and another little piece of my heart broke off and floated away. Tears slipped down my cheek.

Still, a tiny flicker of hope ignited in me that night. Maybe I could get through the next day. Maybe I _could_ mend. Maybe I wouldn't always feel as much like the undead as I did just now. I drifted off and dreamed of nothing, for once.

****

I breathed deep a dry, familiar scent and scooted back into the cool, hard body behind me. An arm came around and cuddled me to him and fingers lightly stroked my face. I felt that old, inexplicable comfort and sighed.

"Dear one," he breathed, tickling my ear. Those arms felt nice and I moved to turn to him and tell him so, but he stopped me. It was just as well. Twisting hadn't been a great idea for me for a while now, and I loved laying in his arms again. Something tight inside me began to unfurl as I breathed deeply in his embrace.

I murmured contentedly again and felt his hand ghost down my side, caressing gently, until he got to the hem of my sleep shirt, which had ridden up my hips.

"Be sweet," I mumbled, eyes still closed.

"Oh yes," he whispered and kissed my neck. A soft humming began in my body. His hand slipped under my sleepshirt and back up my side, bringing the shirt up with him.

He murmured something quiet in an ancient tongue, pressing against my ear softly. "No panties?" he asked, a faint accent twisting his words in soft, surprising ways.

I moved my head a fraction to shake it and lost the will to move. I wanted to tell him panties had been too painful for a while now, but couldn't make my mouth open.

"Let me feel," he said softly, placing a hand on my thigh for permission. I whimpered my consent but couldn't move. I was melting. I was melting.

His fingers softly pressed into my thigh, moving it upward and cupping me in his large palm. My girl bits had never felt so good, I thought. For the first time since the slicing and biting, I felt almost safe. Then he slid a finger into my folds. Ahhh. I sighed.

He must have felt the same because I could feel him stir behind me. "This is right," he breathed, dipping down to feel my already flooded center. I moaned in sheer pleasure. I didn't know how long it had been since I'd felt any pleasure--felt anything but cold fear. I felt his fangs tease my neck. His slick fingers rolled the wetness around before sliding between and finding my nub. Oh. Oh. "This is _right_."

Oh god. I felt myself rock up against him, the exquisite pleasure of him forming thickly against my back. I squeezed my thighs tightly together, trapping him there. He let out a hiss and pressed against me. I felt enveloped, surrounded by his hand on one side and his hard pressing body on the other. I wanted to be here, stay here, forever.

His fingers fluttered and slipped and dipped down into my center and, for a miracle, I didn't cry out in pain. I didn't feel my stitches. Just the hot, wet pleasure of his hand and the rocking of our hips and the promise of his fangs. I let out some tiny, contented sounds, unable to do more, unable to turn, unwilling to do anything but just this. I was reaching and it felt, for the first time in what seemed like months, that something good was within my grasp.

"Yes, my lover," he growled. I felt his other hand lift my hair away from my hot neck. I was reaching, I was reaching. "This is _best_," he groaned against my ear. Ah. Ah.

I wanted his fangs so badly I thought I would cry if he didn't take me just then. But then he licked and nuzzled and I felt him enter me. I cried out and his fingers pressed down against me, into me, not stopping, not slowing as he drew on the little wound, and just like that, I pressed back hard against him, pressing him as deep into my center as I could, and came, seeing white and gold.

He held me like that, his fingers slipping around as I experienced aftershocks, until my breath calmed. His hand caressed along my belly and up, tracing my ribs to my breasts. He caressed each gently, paying extra attention to the hard nipples and then wedged his hand between my breasts, holding me.

"_My_ lover," he whispered, and pulled me tighter against him. For once, nothing ached, only a pleasant throbbing. No pain stabbed through me. "Perfect."

I smiled and opened my eyes at that, my brain working finally. I reached behind me to pull his head down further on me, hold him close. But just as I did, I fell back against the bed and a sharp pain ran up my side. Nothing. No vampire. I felt the loss to my toes and brought a hand to my mouth to catch the sob that broke there. Wet fingers touched my lip and smelled myself on them. A deep sobbing took me over.

Eric's POV

The ringing of the phone interrupted the most keening longing I'd had for Sookie in a long while. My fingers twitched at the memory of her hot wetness. I was hard. I was miserable.

"I am here," I grumbled.

"Mr. Northman, why have you not healed your Bonded?" came the voice, officious and a little impatient.

Irritation flared. I did not have to explain myself to her. I would not tell her that Sookie had rejected me--again. That she had rescinded my invitation and bid me gone. That despite tracking her through her pain, despite orchestrating her rescue, despite even securing her a place in Dr. Ludwig's own hospital, Sookie looked at me with such intense disappointment and rage that I briefly considered meeting the sun. And that, despite all the dangers I had faced, all the battles I had won, I could not bear to go back and see that look in her eyes again.

"She has been quite unwilling." I clinched my jaw.

"Mr. Northman," she began, and then paused. "Mr. Northman, I feel it is my duty to tell you that Miss Stackhouse is not recovering well. Her wounds are still unhealed. She injured herself this morning attacking an assailant that was not there. She is not sleeping. She is alone in this farmhouse of hers and tells me that she cannot walk its halls without collapsing in panic."

A deep rage welled in me, tensing all my muscles. I looked about my office, scanned through my memory. Who could I kill? I had already ripped open and fed upon the dead bodies of the fairies Lochlan and Neave with great glee. The memory of their blood even now caused my fangs to run down. My hands tensed with the need for vengeance. I ached to tear something--anything--limb from limb. Sookie was brave enough but an innocent. She had no skin in this fight and yet she had been flayed.

And she was hurting herself now? I flashed to the memory of Ignatius, a great warrior I had known when I was a young vampire. He had been so wounded by the battles in his human life that he had become a dangerous and unpredictable vampire. Unexpected sounds or most especially smells could send him into a bloodlust and decimate whole villages. We had to move around even more quickly than usual when I was in his company. Could my dear Sookie be trapped by this devil as well?

"I believe she has what is called supernatural post-traumatic stress disorder," I heard the doctor continue. "It is very common among the human companions of supernatural creatures. Our primal natures are difficult for them. They are sensitive and, without our magic, they become worn very quickly. They are not as resilient as we are."

She paused for a second to allow me to take this in.

"I have left her some medication for anxiety and suggested a specialist in this disorder. But I don't need to tell you that blood as ancient and powerful as yours can bestow a quickness and a vitality that few other vampires possess, much less humans. I believe that it is your blood that can speed the recovery process."

I deep wave of a disorienting emotion passed over me. I felt a lurching in my stomach and a heaviness and a... shame. Why had I not insisted? Why had I let something as small as her rescinding my invitation keep me from her? She was sick and I was prolonging her illness. And I had so little time with her as it was.

"One more thing, Mr. Northman," the doctor added when it was clear I wasn't going to respond. "I don't believe it's wise for her to be alone right now, especially at night. She seems to have terrors and runs the risk of injuring herself further. She could also use help during the day with food, as it's clear to me that she is not eating enough. I should think you would want to arrange some sort of care for her if you are unable to be there yourself."

The doctor didn't need to say it: Sookie was my Bonded. I was responsible for taking care of her and I was failing. It was true she had rescinded my invitation. But I had abandoned her as surely as I had not tracked her quickly enough to spare her that pain.

Rage and shame and some other sneaking dark feeling swirled in me as I clinched and unclinched my jaw, thinking.

"Yes," I said finally. "Thank you, doctor. You know where to send your bill. And the bill for the specialist, also. I would like that sent to me, as well. Please spare no expense for her care."

I hung up the phone and thought. I glanced at the clock. It was nearly dawn. I made a few more phone calls and prepared to head home for my daily rest.

I paused. Did this mean that my Sookie had rejected everyone in her life, even Sam? Was she neglecting herself? I couldn't bear the thought. She was far, far too precious.

She had always been so proud of her ability to manage her own life. Had I overestimated her? Believed her when I should have followed my own instincts?

I headed for the door, scratching a tickle on my cheek. Pulling my fingers away, I saw the bloody tear.


	4. Chapter 4: A Leaf in a Hurricane

**A/N:** Wow, you guys. Thank you so much for your really kind words on my writing. And I see by most of the comments that you're anxious for some good vampire-telepath lovin'. And we're all loving Dr. Ludwig. God bless the tiny doc. Since I got so many "come _on_ already" comments, I'm giving you a little start to the lemon extravaganza here. I've been listening to a lot of the Swell Season while writing this, and I think "When Your Mind's Made Up" from the Once soundtrack is appropriate for this chapter. Listen along if you like.

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Disclaimer:** Bonnie and Dr. Eugenides are mine. The rest of the characters belong to Charlaine Harris.

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**Chapter 4: A Leaf in a Hurricane**

Sookie's POV

I was in the middle of my big task for the day--finally cleaning up the glass from the lamp on my bedroom floor. I was 2 in the afternoon, so I had been up for a few hours and had had my bath. Breakfast would be next, if I didn't need a nap after this. I swear, the smallest things seemed to drain all my energy these days. But then the doorbell rang and I surprised myself with how fast I could squat down behind my bed. I felt the searing pain immediately and knew I had ripped again. I winced and felt my blood pounding at my temple. Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea.

I didn't know why I was so scared. Supes bent on destruction don't often ring the doorbell. But maybe it was just the opening gambit, and they were assessing how quickly I could move. Maybe--oh god--maybe they'd never found Breandan and he was here to get me. Or did they kill him? I thought I remembered something about that, foggily, in the back of my head. Maybe it was one of his followers still on this side of the portal, bent on revenge. Oh. Oh no. My legs started to shake. My fear of leaving the house suddenly seemed real dumb. Sitting duck, that's me. Sitting chicken, was more like it.

As I listened to my pulse pound in my head and my quick breaths, I also became aware of another sound. A chattering mind. People don't think in full sentences, so it was more like someone's half-jotted grocery list than a story. _... Theresa picking on Cecelia.... such a pretty day... those weeds sure are high... is she home?... maybe the wrong address... What's a "bonded" anyway?_

My breath caught in my throat and my head shot up. I concentrated as hard as I could and sent my mind out to see if there was anything else out there. There wouldn't be any void spots--daytime, no vampires. But there were no snarly jumbles that indicated shifters or Weres and there were no unusual brainwaves that indicated fairies. Oh thank heavens.

So I knew two things--maybe three. There was a human at my door. She was sent by Eric. (I'm ashamed to admit that a tingle went through me when I heard that.) And I still couldn't seem to get up. My body was locked in position, though my brain was ready to move and my heart rate was slowing.

I'd surely need a nap after this.

"Uh, I'm coming!" I called as loud as I could. "Give me a minute!"

I rolled forward onto my knees and scooted around to the foot of the bed until I could get my legs to cooperate. Then I climbed up the side of my bed by the bed post and steadied myself. Oh this woman was going to think I was a basket case.

I shuffled to the door and walked as quickly as I could while also watching the floor for that soft floorboard. By the time I got to the door I was exhausted. The adrenaline had started to drain from my sistem and I felt weary to my core. I placed both hands on the door and summoned the courage to open it. I tried not to think of the door getting knocked down, of the fights in this very entryway. Oh lordy.

I looked through the peep hole, though I already knew what to expect, and saw a petite woman with a wide belly strapped in by a thin black belt shifting uncomfortably on my porch. Her hands were clasped in front of her and she seemed to be examining the back of the house, where my car was.

I breathed deep and unlocked the door. I had to force my muscles to cooperate, but I pulled back the door a few inches and peered around it.

"Hi there," I said, my nervous smile snapping into place. "Can I help you?"

The woman smiled wide in relief, and something about her broad smile and the way she met my gaze relaxed me a little.

"Are you Miss Sookie Stackhouse?" she said gently, consulting a card in front of her.

I nodded and she handed me a envelope of rich cream cardstock. I recognized it immediately as Eric's. My heart fluttered. "I was told to give you this before we begin."

I nodded and tore the envelope open with a shaky hand. It read:

_Dearest Sookie,_

_I have been patient with your stubborn insistence on self-reliance. However, it has come to my attention that you are not mended and not taking care of yourself. That will not do. I know you will not accept extravagant gifts, but Bonita's assistance is essential. She is a trained home health aide and I understand a good cook. Let her help you._

_I will be there at first dark. Please invite me in. I do not want to fight this night._

_You are precious. Be well. _

_Eric_

I blinked away tears and reread the letter. Stubborn? That sounded like Eric. Precious? Not so much. I reread it again, lingering on the last line and on Eric's handwriting. I looked up at the wrinkled face of the woman in front of me. I smiled apologetically and nodded. She was looking at me with an expression of polite curiosity and I was working real hard to stay on my feet and not sob. I smiled extra hard.

"Won't you come in?" I said and did not move. It took a few breaths to get my feet to shuffle back. Clinging to the door helped again today as it did yesterday.

We looked at each other in the entry to my house for a few minutes, she with her polite smile and me with my crazy, nervous one, until finally we introduced ourselves and Bonita told me to call her Bonnie.

"Can I get you something to drink?" I asked her.

"Oh no, dear. That's what I'm here for. I don't know what that letter said, but I've been a home health aide for 15 years and I do everything from cooking to shopping to paying bills to light housework. I can also help with personal needs, as necessary."

When I looked confused she smiled and waved her hand. "You know, changing bandages, turning bed-bound patients, administering medications, helping you in and out of the shower or bath, even assisting with toilet needs--though you look young and fairly strong. I doubt that will be necessary."

It was nice, in a way, that she was so matter of fact about all these embarrassing things I'd been struggling with for weeks now. My smile came a little more natural now. I nodded and thought how nice it would have been to have had someone like Bonnie that first week when I was home and any movement caused stabbing pain. I almost felt guilty for taking her away from someone who might need her more. I wanted to cry again and I couldn't say why.

But it was still awkward having a stranger in my house--especially this stranger. Bonnie, bless her, was a clear broadcaster and before we'd introduced ourselves, I knew that she had been a single mother but was now raising her two grandchildren after her daughter had gone to jail for drug possession, that she was an usher in her church, and that she had taken a job with an agency often used by supes out of Shreveport. She must have driven a long way.

My head hurt already.

She scooted me to the couch and parked me there while she moved briskly about my home, making a list of things to do. I felt like a child. I wasn't allowed to get up and finish cleaning up the glass. I wasn't allowed to make my own meal. She brought me a glass of milk and made a note to pick up some soda at the store. I asked her to get TrueBlood, too. If Eric was coming, I wanted him to have something to eat besides me. She asked me if I'd like some magazines also. She asked me what kind of food I liked and brought me toast and preserves for breakfast. I ate slumped on the couch and stared at the television.

Soon I gave up on the TV, though. The sound of it and of Bonnie's brain together was like having two TVs blaring at you on opposite sides of your head. I closed my eyes and listened to her move and clean and strip the bed and remake it. Before long, the house was humming with normal sounds of the washing machine on the porch and dishes being washed in the sink, and I was exhausted. Shielding her efficient thoughts proved to be harder than ever, especially when she was critical of my housekeeping. Gran was always much better at that than I was, and Amelia even more so. I couldn't help it. I felt defeated. I hadn't had to shield anyone's thoughts in a month, and I was so edgy that I didn't have the capacity to hold them at bay for long.

By the time she announced she was on her way to the Super Walmart to pick up groceries and look for a new lamp for me, my head was pounding and I was near tears from the onslaught. Bonnie came over to check on me and ask me if I'd prefer for her to knock when she returned or if I'd like her to borrow my keys. I pointed her to the spare set Amelia had left behind and asked her to help me to my bed.

Sliding in between the clean sheets was heavenly. I buried myself into the blankets up to my nose and inhaled deeply. The room smelled better. I hadn't realized how sour with sweat my other sheets had become in the last month, and having someone make my bed for me made me think of Gran. Tears sprang to my eyes, happy and sad and overwhelmed tears. I drifted into a deep slumber while she was gone, and this time, it really was like drifting--easy, effortless.

***

I only awoke when the buzzer sounded on the dryer.

I heard Bonnie in the kitchen. She was thinking that milk was becoming too expensive and that she hoped her grandbabies would be done with their homework when she got home tonight and she was wondering why the kitchen seemed so new compared to the rest of the house. I could smell something bubbling on the stove. My stomach gurgled.

By then the house was cool and dim in the waning light of the day. I knew Eric would be here soon and I started to wonder what I would do when he arrived. It was true that my heart had fluttered, that I'd tingled at the thought of him, and that I'd done a whole lot more than that at the thought of him last night. But this was Eric. Not my Eric, but Sheriff Eric. The Eric who put himself first in all things. The Eric who couldn't be bothered to help when I was at my weakest, most vulnerable. The Eric who tricked me into blood-bonding with him and then tricked me into marrying him, vampire-style, without even warning me. He didn't even have the decency to be embarrassed about it, and he certainly never apologized. I didn't care how many times he wrote "precious" on pretty note paper. I still felt betrayed. A cold sadness settled back into my belly. I shivered, this time not in a happy way. My wounds ached. I wanted to throw something or ball up and cry, but I didn't want Bonnie to hear me.

***

I was sitting up in bed eating the chili Bonnie had made when the doorbell rang for the second time today. The chili was rich and flavorful, and way better than the frozen pizza I'd had yesterday. I scraped the last of it out of the bowel and felt the food burn down my throat. I'd asked Bonnie to leave after she'd brought me my chili, and even though she protested, she eventually gave in. I wanted to be angry and cry and collapse if I had to without a human witness. And I couldn't talk about fairies around her. Most humans didn't know they were real yet, and now they probably never would.

This time, the doorbell didn't panic me, but I was still worried. I was pretty sure I knew who it was and the mental blank-spot I detected confirmed it. I smoothed my hand over my hair in a ridiculous motion. I hadn't brushed my hair in I don't know how many days and it was laying limp in a braid down my back. But sue me. I still wanted to look pretty for him. As pretty as road kill could look, anyway.

I put one foot after the other on the floor and slid them into my slippers. I stood on shaky legs and moved with effort toward the door. Part of me wished I could run I wanted to be in his arms so badly. The other part thought he could just cool his heels out on the porch for a few minutes. I didn't know what to do.

That is, until I saw him through the peephole. He was so beautiful, all 6'5" of him, clad in tight jeans and a Fangtasia t-shirt, and carrying a bag. His hair was rumpled and he glowed faintly the way that all vampires did to me. For some reason, though, seeing him made all the strength rushed from my body. I sagged against the door and began crying, and I couldn't have even told you why. The cries turned into sobbing and I slid down to the floor. I felt empty and alone again and I needed him more than I'd ever needed anything. It was like that hour I spent with the fairies and all the night terrors and all the the sadness I'd felt this past month was suddenly attacking me all at once. My body ached at the accumulation of the weeks I'd spent without him. I suddenly felt the emptiness deep in my soul and I couldn't breathe under its weight.

Please, I sighed silently. Please.

As soon as I started crying I felt Eric shake the door, which rattled me and made me cry harder.

"Lover, open the door," he said urgently, and I could hear that he'd moved down to be near the floor with me. Please, I thought again. Please.

My body wracked with sobs.

"Come in," I whispered. "Come in. Please. Please. Please."

I heard the door rattle again, a little harder this time. Suddenly, I knew that if I didn't do something quick, Eric would knock this door down right on top of me. "Wait," I croaked. "Don't! Give me a minute!"

I breathed deep and pulled myself up. I hung from the door knob just enough to reach the lock and turned it. I fell back and Eric was suddenly on the floor next to me, kissing my tears, caressing my face.

"My lover," he said softly. "I am sorry. I am sorry."

He gathered me to him and rose. I was vaguely aware of the door closing and us moving down the hall. I was consumed with the feel of him. I pressed myself to him as closely as I could, wishing I could somehow climb inside him, hyperventilating on his scent. He was holding me tightly to him. Not enough, a tiny voice in my head screamed. Not enough. I cried against his shirt, somehow more desperate now that I was with him than I'd been all that time by myself.

He was petting my back, shushing me like I was a wounded animal. When he put me down I clung to him, crying harder. "Don't leave," I whispered. "Don't leave me."

He looked at me and his normally impassive face was twisted with alarm and pain. "Lover," he whispered and gazed down at me, worried. He caressed my cheek. Then he kicked off his shoes and laid out against me. I curled to him, pressing myself around him. Something was breaking apart in me, something hard and stiff between my shoulder blades was heaving and shifting and I shook with the effort of it and wailed. Eric opened his arms and folded me close to him, kissing my hair, my forehead, my ears, my eyelids. His tongue ran out to taste my tears and I turned my face to him, offering them to him.

"I am here, dear one," he murmured as I shook harder. "Quiet now. I am here."

But I couldn't be quiet, I couldn't control my body's tremors. I was like a leaf in a hurricane--trembling in a great natural force, hoping only to hold on till it passed. He began to rock me against him, his other hand sliding down my back in slow, deliberate caresses as I wailed and cried.

We went on like this for a long time, him holding me, me crying, him kissing, me shaking. Try as I might to settle, I couldn't. I was unnerved in a very literal way. Finally, my crying slowed and my breath was shaky but calmer. I still shivered against him like I'd had a shock, though, and I felt cold. Eric pulled a blanket up over us.

Finally, Eric kissed my forehead. "There," he whispered. "Rest now."

He kissed my nose. "I'm sorry about your shirt," I said in a voice that wasn't mine. It was too high, too small. I rubbed my face against it. It was covered in tears and snot and saliva. I still loved to put my face here, into his chest. I hoped he wouldn't move for a long time.

"It is nothing," he chuckled quietly, kissing my cheek when I raised my face to him again. "Nothing."

Softly, he kissed my mouth, just a whisper of lips against lips. And then again, slowly and carefully. I was still breathing in short bursts. Still shivering. But his mouth on mine calmed me. I felt something warm bloom in my chest and I started to cry again, this time in a kind of relief. I kissed him back and sighed, pulling my arm up to wrap around his neck and hold him close. Closer. Please.

Our kiss deepened as he pulled me tighter to him. I let out a low moan and welcomed him into my mouth, bring my tongue to press around his. I inhaled deeply his scent and felt light headed and hungry at once. My palm trailed down his back, feeling his muscles working under his shirt and I sighed and shook a little less. My hand landed on that glorious backside.

Out of nowhere a tiny thought formed in my mind: _Mine_.

It so shocked me that I pulled back and looked Eric in the eyes. Eric's eyes were already on mine, and their tenderness and lust knocked my breath clean out of me. I felt my cheeks redden. I held my breath, held his gaze and my tired mind crumbled a little further. "Oh, Eric," I whispered in surprise. I pressed into him to kiss him harder.

"Yes, my lover," he said, kissing my mouth again. "Yes."

His stroking hand, the one that had been on my back, moved down to cup my bottom and I began rocking into him, trying to ignore the pain that came with every thrust. I longed to throw my leg over his hip, snuggle in closer, but just the thought of it made me wince.

Eric noticed. His hand was traveling lightly down my side and he turned so that suddenly I was laying on top of him. I wiggled there restlessly, loving the feel of his hands holding me, of his gracious plenty under me, my breasts pressing into his chest through our shirts, his fangs on me. My breathing was hitched again, but not because of fear this time. Now I just wanted him. His hand slid down my body until they reached the bottom of my sleep shirt and traveled up again, just like in my dream. I sighed. I couldn't believe my luck.

Then his big hands reached my butt and cupped me there, running his thumbs over my skin lightly, groaning against my mouth. I felt him growing harder and oh lord, I don't know if I've ever wanted anything more.

"Sookie," he growled. "No panties?" He reached up to nuzzle my neck and said something in his old language. I felt his fangs graze my neck and I let out a strangled sound of joy. "For me?"

I wanted to let him believe that I was some little vixen who had removed her panties because she knew her vampire (her vampire!) would be paying a visit this evening. But as his hands dipped lower, holding the top of my thigh and his fingers slid between my legs, I felt a stab of pain, along with the delicious ache that was growing there.

Through sobs of pleasure, rocking against him despite the pain, I shook my head regretfully. "I wish it had been," I said. I bit his shoulder lightly, relishing the taste, hardly wanting to go on, hardly wanting to dissuade him from anything he was doing just now. But the more I throbbed with pain, the more a sickening unease snaked up my back. No matter how happy I was that he was here, I couldn't stop feeling like road kill, like hamburger meat, especially in those tender spots I most wanted him to touch. Even though I wanted it, I wasn't sure I could let him touch me, really touch me, there.

A wave of nauseous shame hit me. _As if any of them could be truly lovely._ Well, she'd made sure I wasn't. I started sobbing right on top of him, burying my face in his chest once again.

"What, my lover?" Eric asked tenderly, softly stroking my hair away from my face. "Tell me."

"I just," I started. "I just hurt so much right there." A sob broke from my throat and I tried to bury myself deeper into him, hide from him and hold him at once. I liked to have died. I didn't want to have to tell him this. I wanted to be all better when he came to me. Good as new and ready for him to take me. But I wasn't. I was broken. I wasn't sure this 1000-year-old Viking could understand what it was like to be damaged so intimately--to have had to be awake and watching as they bit and sliced and tore, to have to live with the bloody remains. I cried harder into his chest and I felt his hand twitch on my bottom. He held me to him.

I half expected him to flinch away, but instead he kissed my neck and ran his mouth up next to my ear.

"This I can help with," he said. "I will heal you if you let me."

Slowly, I moved my head half an inch to indicate acceptance and he rolled us so that he was laying on me. For a miracle, I felt safe. Finally. I wrapped my arms around him in gratitude. Safe, finally.

He pulled back and sat back on his heels. Soon, his shirt was off and he was climbing off the bed to remove his jeans. I felt cold and something else and shivered. His hands went back to the hem of my sleep shirt and he looked up at me.

"I would like to remove this. Will you allow it?"

Because he still was here and wanted to, I let him. Carefully, he pulled it up, delicately raising it from under me until I was bare.

He regarded me. I turned my head away. I couldn't look at him while he was looking at what I had become. My hands drifted over my chest, landing over my breasts protectively.

"Please lover," he whispered. "Let me see." He gently moved my hands off of me and it took all my self restraint not to curl into a ball and hide. I shivered in cold and shame. I felt for all the world like that inhuman, bloody mass Thing One and Thing Two had made me. _Croak, froggy. Croak._ That was me.

Eric's fingers ghosted over my belly and up to my ribs, and I flinched. I wiped a tear away and mouthed, "I'm sorry." I didn't know what for, probably a hundred things. I tried to bury my face in the pillows. And then Eric was on me, hovering over my body with his, big, strong, cool one, and his mouth was licking my neck, kissing me up and down my shoulder until I was shivering in pleasure again. He slid his hands under me, cradling my breasts up toward him.

"You have nothing to apologize for," he said, and it sounded almost vicious. I blinked, confused.

But then his mouth was back on me and I sighed and ran my hands through his hair. I still couldn't look at him. I knew that was his thing, but I just... I couldn't. Maybe later. Tomorrow. In a year. Ten years. He called me that ancient name again, but with such tenderness I nearly melted. I wanted to just hold him here, not let him see my pain anymore. I wished I could still be that girl who'd told him to bring it on, who could straddle him effortlessly. I would never be the same, I knew, and I sobbed.

"Sookie," he whispered. "Yield to me."

I held him to me a minute longer, fearing once he really saw me, my injuries, and knew I was no good for sex, he'd run out the door as quickly as if I'd rescinded his invitation.

Then I let go and he started his progress south. At every sore spot, I felt him hover. He lifted my arms, carefully examining wounds and scarred tissue, kissing my fresh bruise at my shoulder and my splinted pinkie. At every set of stitches, I felt him bathe me in kisses and licks thick with moisture. Despite my shame, I found myself relaxing a little at his touch. No matter what, I realized, I would always want him to touch me.

His mouth landed next on my nipple and I gasped and squirmed under him. My hands held him there in contentment. "Beautiful," I heard him say as he took one hardened nipple into his mouth. "Beautiful." His other hand came up and held my other breast, his thumb teasing me.

I felt his fangs scrape and suddenly I wanted that. I bucked despite the pain, bringing myself to him. "Oh! Yes," I heard myself whimper. "Please."

I risked a look at him and he was seeking my eyes, holding them. And just then--oh, just then--I felt a tiny prick and a great pleasure as he sucked, pulling from the wound and my nipple as one. I thought I was floating until he bit the other breast and then I knew I was. I whispered his name in gratitude.

And then I saw what he was doing. He had bitten into his own tongue and, on the sore, still-healing spots on my breasts and just under them, he was massaging his blood into the wounds, healing them from the outside in. I felt nothing but wonder and desire as those little swirls of red made their appearance on my skin. And suddenly I wanted him to move down, to bathe me that way in my most painful parts, the parts that were crying for him.

I released his head and my expression must have changed because his eyes got darker with lust and I felt his fangs scrape down my belly. I shivered. He licked up after them, kissing me.

He lavished attention on the small wounds on my hips and at the crook of my knees, and spent minutes kissing and caressing the stitches on my calf with his mouth and blood. It felt divine. Epsom salt baths were for chumps, I thought absently.

And then finally, he arrived at the most pained spot. Curled up between my knees, he pressed at my thighs softly, asking me to open for him. I breathed in shakily, shaking from lots of different things, and complied. He spent a considerable time on the puncture wounds on my inner thighs and the stitches that tore every time I squatted and bent and... moved... and I couldn't have been happier to have him there, attending to them. I sighed and shuddered at the sensation. I felt his thick blood coating the stitches, felt his kisses and also felt myself dripping down to the sheets under me. He moaned against me and I bucked despite the pain.

"Baby," I cooed and played with his hair. "Honey."

He turned his head and I knew he was done with my thighs. My breath caught and I waited, yearning and terrified all at once. And then he did something I hadn't expected. He moved up and planted a kiss on my sore, bruised mound. I honest to goodness quaked--in pleasure, in fear, moving away from his touch and toward it at once. He brought his tongue down and I could feel his sluggish blood trickle into my wetness. I lost my breath and regained it and lost it again. He groaned and I could see him bending his hips in to the mattress. Oh my lord. Yes.

He swirled that tongue right over my whole pussy, bathing it at once in his blood. And then he went back up and swirled around my nub and I liked to have passed out it felt so good. The bad ache was still there, but his smart tongue was finding the tenderest parts, the stitches, and softly attending to them. Despite myself, I arched all the way into his mouth, and the stretch didn't feel so bad this time. Eric groaned against me and I shivered and sighed and bucked and the pattern started all over again. It didn't hurt so bad to spread my thighs anymore and I found myself doing so aggressively. Oh. Oh.

I reached a hand over my head and held the headboard for stability and arched myself into him over and over again, his mouth alternating between my wounds and my nub at increasing speed. I was sobbing all over again and this time reaching for real, thrashing into him. His tongue stretched into my entrance and I shuddered, building. Then he stopped licking and started sucking and I had one last thought. _My _vampire_. Mine._ And just like that, a wail ripped through my throat and I fell right over the edge, visions of white light with gold and crimson streaks covering my eyes.

When I started to come down, I felt him kissing my thigh, right where the artery pulsed, and I wondered why he didn't bite. He must be hungry.

But instead of asking for a TrueBlood, he murmured, "Perfect," and rose to kiss me on the lips before I could doubt him. I could taste myself and his blood on him. I wanted more. And that was apparently his idea, too.

"You need to drink," he said hoarsely after a long few minutes of kissing. I felt him heavy and hard on my thigh.

I scraped my nails down his chest and ran my fingers through his happy trail before locating him and grasping. He gasped as my thumb smeared his thick liquid around his head. He felt so good in my fingers and I could tell from the sounds he was making that it felt good for him, too. I was looking into his eyes, and he was kissing me, and then he pulled his mouth away. I heard a familiar crunch and then he held his wrist to my mouth. Between groans, he said, "This will... heal the bruises... anything inside."

I latched on and sucked, swallowing mouthfuls of his sticky, thick blood. He began to move himself on my hand. I knew what this did to him and so I moved my hand more quickly, sucking hard before the wound could close. But it did, and he broke it open again, offering himself to me more. I used my free hand to hold him to my mouth and felt him nuzzling my neck. At one last hard suck, I felt him swell and then release, all over my hand and stomach.

"My love," he said, kissing me below my ear. My heart stuttered. He turned me on my side and pulled me against him, covering us in a blanket. He kissed my shoulder and took my hand and I fell into a deep, satisfied sleep.


	5. Chapter 5: The Pyre

**A/N:** Seems like last chapter's ESN did everyone good and I'm glad. I decided to revisit it a bit more in this chapter, with a little new lemony goodness at the end. There's a line in the song "Falling Slowly" (also on the "Once" soundtrack) that goes, "You have suffered enough/and warred with yourself/it's time that you won." That's how I feel about Sookie. I'm rooting for her. Go Team Sookie!

Thanks again for the great reviews. Keep them coming!

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Disclaimer:** I own Bonnie and Dr. Eugenides and maybe Eric's mom (they're _Mine!_), but the other characters belong to Charlaine Harris.

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Chapter 5: The Pyre**

Eric's POV

I could feel my blood swirling in her veins. The sensation of my blood being near me but not in me is intoxicating in its own way, of the bond creaking open once again. It had been so long since I'd felt it that I almost thought it had been lost, its magic destroyed by the dark arts of the fairy executioners.

But now I could feel Sookie's contentment and something like peace, but also a deep undercurrent of dread and a humming fear. And there was something else, something I couldn't place. Something wild and loose in her that defied description. It had never been there before. This must be the devil that plagued her.

I pulled her closer still, wrapping her so tightly that my hand circled around and fell on opposite hip and my other hand snaked down to hold and cup her healing sex. I breathed in her scent from the nape of her neck. If I could keep her with me for the rest of my existence, I would never tire of this. That sweet bouquet, her delicious blood. This was right. So right.

As she lay sleeping, I wondered idly if she was stable enough to have workers come and make this room light-tight. I hated to leave her at dawn, even if I was just going to be in the next room. And I was surprised to discover that I wanted it, too. I wanted to be the first thing she saw when she rose, and I wanted her to do the same for me. A strange ache spread in my muscles--and they haven't ached for generations. I had the impulse to pull away from her but when I tried I found myself unable to let go. _Mine_, I thought, unbidden, and I dragged her slightly across the bed. My jaw flexed.

I looked at her sleeping face quizzically, as if unlocking her mystery could somehow unlock my own. I settled for listening to her breathe and pulse. Her heartbeat raced and calmed with her dreams, and I could feel when something unpleasant stirred in her as she jerked and tensed instinctively. I watched her small hands curled into fists and released, the splinted finger now pink and mobile. I petted her belly and kissed her neck until she calmed again.

With wonder, I realized this was not at all how I had expected this night to go.

I had flown to her house at first dark, rising in the clothes I would wear, my bag already packed and waiting for me by the door. I was impatient for this evening to begin, to take my role as her Bonded. And, if I speak the truth, to see her again. I had been prepared for hours of arguing on her front steps, and was resigned to the prospect of camping out all night and going to ground in the cemetery if necessary. I would not be denied, and this time I would be sure she knew it.

But I had been utterly unprepared for how feral--how lost and terrified and wild--she had been from the moment of my arrival. I had listened to her shuffling gait in the hall, had heard her pained sigh when she reached the door. But the next moment she was wailing.

I had only heard crying like that a few times in my long life, always from the grief-stricken wives of dead tribal chieftains. As a child, I had watched the matriarch of our village wail and gnash her teeth and tear her clothes from her body upon her master's death. She had carved bloody lines in her face and breast before climbing atop the pyre where her husband laid and let the flames take her. No one had attempted to coddle me from the vision, as they would today. I was the oldest son, destined to take my father's place, and was expected to stand the display with quiet honor.

With a swift shudder, I remembered that sound from my own mother's mouth. Though I was vampire, I had returned to my homeland when I learned of my father's passing. I was still attached to my human life then, and human emotions still battled uncomfortably with my new vampire instincts. I hid in a stand of ewen trees just outside my family's hut and listened as a keening wail tore through the night. It went on till dawn, and continued the next night. When I saw my mother in torchlight, still sobbing in the arms of my brother, her face and chest was covered with dozens of bloody scratches and her fingernails were torn and ragged with bits of blood and flesh.

As a very young vampire--too young, really, to be anywhere near my birthplace--the temptation of her blood was too strong and I stole into the night filled with guilt and love and rage, as well as other, now-forgotten feelings. When I came upon a man and his family traveling alone through a darkened wood, I killed the children quickly so they would never know a life without their parents and proceeded to tear the man's throat out and drink his blood. I fed from the woman and glamoured her into offering herself to my family as a nursemaid.

So when I heard that same primal, enraged, hopeless grief coming from my Bonded, I itched to dismantled the house plank by plank. No house meant no invitation and I could save her. I am grateful that she, even in her deepest grief, had the strength to invite me in and somehow unlock the door. I was sure she would be displeased if I had torn her house asunder. My fangs ran down and my body had ached with the need to get to her, keep her from scratching at herself, from injuring herself any more than she already had done.

That she had allowed me to comfort her was base solace for me--though I would have taken her and held her close against her will if I had to. That she allowed me to touch her most raw places, to kiss her and heal her with my blood seemed a miracle. Tasting the blood in her wounds and--miraculously, mercifully--in her breasts... That she had called my name for it, demanded it, made me regret every fangbanger I had taken in the last month. Why I had bothered with them when I could have had this--when Sookie clearly wanted me, primally--I do not know. Sad, small substitutes would never suffice again. I would buy stock in HemaGlobal Japan, the makers of TrueBlood, perhaps add a distribution plant to my portfolio of properties. I would not sully my lips with bloodbags when I could have her. She wanted me and needed me. A gift of the gods.

But when she had begged me--my Bonded, begging!--not to leave her once we got to the bedroom, my dead heart shattered all over again and a thick rage rose in me. I knew then that whatever harm she'd done to herself over the month--however much she had neglected herself--I'd done the same. You will not often find me decrying the power of arrogance--after all, mine is hard won. But in this instance, my arrogant need to force Sookie to come to me ignored her human fragility and did nothing to advance my directive: _She is mine and she will be mine._

The possibility that I could, possibly, finally, have her flooded me with unaccustomed feelings, starting in my stomach and floating out until they were gripping onto Sookie's warm skin softly. I wanted to give to her without taking. I wanted to make things easy for her. I wanted to serve her however she would have me.

Glancing at the clock, I realized there were only a few hours till dawn and much to be done. Unwillingly, I unfurled myself from her and stole into the living room, where my bag was still lying on the floor. I picked it up and took it with me to the kitchen, where I unfolded my laptop and took two TrueBloods from the refrigerator. I placed both in the microwave at once, my hunger strong. I would need to refrain from feeding from her--no more than love bites--if she is to regain her strength. I knew from Dr. Ludwig's description that Sookie was unwell. But seeing her myself startled me the way nothing else could have. She was so drawn, gaunt, the beguiling fullness of her pinked cheeks replaced with too-prominent bones and ashy skin. Dark circles colored under her eyes. Her hair had lost its luster. She swam in her ridiculous sleep shirt. (I wondered when I could begin presenting her with the slips and negligees I had begun collecting for her.) Dr. Ludwig was right. She was surely not eating.

I had been pleased when I brought her into the room tonight that I could smell human food, and I could smell it lingering in the kitchen even now. This must mean that Sookie had accepted Bonita. This was good. I emailed Bonita's agency to praise the aide's work so far and approved a small bonus for her good works. I also reviewed my updates from Pam and my investigators and sent some orders to Bobby for the following day. I wrote out a few things out and shut my computer down. I deposited all of this in the guest bedroom and returned to my Bonded. I molded myself against her for an exquisite moment, spreading my scent on her further. I relished how she leaned back against me, turning to offer her breasts to me in her sleep. I became hard so quickly it stung and placed one palm over a breast, savoring the sensation.

But I knew there was one more thing to do before I went to rest. While I would be proud to have her wake naked, covered in my blood and cum, I knew it would violate human customs, and Sookie's modesty especially, if Bonita found her that way. So I kissed Sookie's neck and vaulted over her to land lightly in front of the bathroom door. When the tub was full, the candles lit and I'd tipped a tiny amount of oil into the water, I returned to Sookie and retrieved her.

I handed her gently into the water. She stirred.

"Are you leaving?" she asked, alarm growing in her groggy voice and in the bond. Her sleepy hand patted at my chest, seeking me. My stomach clinched and jaw flexed.

I took her hand and kissed her palm, and held it against my head so she could feel me shaking my head. "I will rest in the next room." I kissed her forehead and then her mouth. I watched her face as she slowly understood my statement. First showing only terror, her face registered surprise and wonder, and contentment filled the bond. I added my own and kissed her again.

She uneasily leaned back and cautiously watched me as I turned to my work. I began softly removing the excesses of the evening from her skin, moving in slow, gentle circles. I watched her face grow sleepy again and she lolled in and out of awareness. I raised each arm and scrubbed meticulously, leaving her fingernails, the crook of her neck, toenails and belly button immaculate. As I washed, I inspected her wounds. Plenty of time had passed for my blood to penetrate, and I could see that some of the stitches wove through glossy pink, knitted skin now. This was good.

As my hand moved closer to to her thighs and sex, I felt her terror and wildness well again through the bond, though her body was beginning to move softly with me. I slowed my ministrations grudgingly, kissing her wet hand.

I placed the soap in her hand and covered it with my own. "Would you like to do it?" I asked.

She opened her eyes with effort and looked at me. She shook her head and placed the soap back in my hand, guiding it down. I felt her slide us along one thigh and then across to the other, working in small circles, softly touching the closed stitches. I heard her sigh, but I couldn't tell if it was with lust or simple relief that she was less pained. Her breathing increase and her heartbeat rose as she dropped the soap and, eyes still closed, guided us into her center. She spread her legs as far as the tub would allow and I gasped at the feel of my fingers intwined with hers as we stroked into her silky folds. The wildness was ebbing and flowing in her but it was growing in me. I longed to press hard and fast into her, to bite at her neck as she came, but I didn't dare. Not just yet. That would come in time.

For now, I contented myself with pressing lightly against her pussy, stroking along her wounded parts lightly and her slick, blood-filled petals more insistently. She was becoming bolder, which could only mean that the healing was working. I leaned and sucked a nipple into my mouth and she gasped again. Just then a worry bubbled to the forefront of my brain. If this initiated another wave of wailing, I would have to go to rest and leave her to deal with it by herself. I slowed my movements and raised my head to look at her eyes.

"Sookie, look at me," I whispered urgently. It pained me to do this. I had never refused her pleasure before and would have thought myself incapable of such a thing. She shook her head and guided my hand back down, swirling around her straining nub and sighing. "Please, Sookie. I think we should stop."

Just then her eyes opened wide and look of lust and fear and shame in her eyes was too much for me to bear. I leaned in and kissed her hard, and moved our fingers along her nub again, pressing faster. And soon she was panting and sobbing in a wholly satisfying way, and calling my name against my mouth. Oh gods, I love her. _I love her._

She was floating right on the edge. I bent to her breast again but she panted hotly in my ear, "Please. Please. Bite me."

I growled at her pleas and my need. Two TrueBloods were no match for my Bonded. I raised my head to her neck and licked until her vein plumped out. Never stopping my fingers, I bit and her miraculous nectar flowed into my mouth. Light with earthy, metallic notes, laced with sugar. She groaned and shuddered and jerked on my fingers as she came. I took drag after drag from the tiny wound, not wanting to give up any of her, dawn or no dawn.

But soon I felt her calm and I licked over the wounds, biting my tongue to bath them in blood. Bonita would never know. I kissed her there and she shivered all over, which pleased me deeply. When it was done, I slowly moved my fingers and peered at her face. Her eyes were clear, luminous blue and her cheeks were rosy with blush. Seeing that cheered me and I told her so. She smiled at me but it was a new smile. Or rather, an old one. It hinted at a time I was never meant to remember, when we lived as one and she was open to me. She felt bare to me in a way I had never seen before. I dipped my head down to kiss her long and languorously, in thanks. She emitted tiny sounds that made me want to dirty her up all over again.

Regretfully, black was fading to grey out the window and I stood and held a towel for her. "Come, lover, dawn is approaching. I want to tuck you in."

I helped her to her feet and took her in again with my eyes. Such beauty. I rubbed her dry gently and carried her back to her bed. I kissed her forehead. "Would you like your gown?"

She watched me quietly and shook her head. I wanted to climb back in that bed with her more than I wanted my next twilight, but the instinct for survival is strong in me and I started moving toward the hall.

"Eric," she whispered. I turned to her. "Can I wear your shirt?"

The surprise froze me in place for a moment. But I recovered and quickly tossed her the Fangtasia t-shirt crumpled on the floor, the large spot of tears now dry. I paused in the doorway to watch her struggle into it. I had never seen anything so sexy. I was hard again, but there was nothing to be done. As I climbed through the trapdoor in the guest room closet, I closed my eyes and prayed for first dark.


	6. Chapter 6: War Wounds

**A/N:** I listened to the song "Broke Back" over and over as I wrote this chapter. It's by (surprise!) Swell Season. The album doesn't come out till tomorrow, but you can hear it for free at NPR Music: .?storyId=113630469&sc=fb&cc=fp. I make no money off of this, but it's just so beautiful, and it's all about being broken and needing and surrendering. Apt, I thought.

This was actually a much longer chapter, but I split it in two. It's lemony at the end here and will be lemony again at the beginning of the next chapter. Enjoy! Since I have to go back to work, updates will be slower from here on out.

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Disclaimer:** Sookie and Eric are Charlaine Harris's. This fantasy is all mine.

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Chapter 6: War Wounds**

The last thing I saw before Eric went to rest was that delicious heinie of his. He just walked out of the room naked and unself-conscious and I had to laugh to myself.

The sound echoed faintly in the room. It was wonderful, so different from any I'd made in this room for weeks.

When I woke in the morning, I was laid out flat against the mattress on my stomach, my legs spread, my face buried deep in Eric's scent. I rubbed myself in it and when I could move right, I trailed my hand up to my neck wistfully and felt. But there were no marks. Huh. I could have sworn he bit me in the tub last night. I suddenly grew alarmed and my body tensed. Oh no, oh no. That empty feeling, that rage and hopelessness, shot through me. Oh god. It was a dream.

I shot upright in bed and for the first time in I can't remember how long, I didn't wince or call out in pain. But my heart still raced as I looked around the room. Regular. Ordinary. Panic swirled in my stomach. Oh no. I was about to break into tears when I saw the new lamp on my bedside table. So I hadn't imagined Bonnie. OK. That held off the tears for a moment as I concentrated on it, tried to think back.

And then I looked down at myself and my breath caught and I collapsed on the bed in full relief. Oh thank god. I clutched Eric's Fangtasia t-shirt to me and pulled it up to breathe him in deep. Thank god. I started shaking involuntarily again.

And then my whole body remembered last night. The cold, dusty floor of the living room. The door rattling threateningly. Eric's arms. My face in his chest. A prickly terror on my back. Rage. Quaking and breaking apart. Desperation. "I am here, dear one." Shame. His eyes on me. Deep, intimate shame to my bones. Tenderness. Viciousness. "You have nothing to apologize for." His mouth. Oh, his gentle, exploring, healing mouth. Little red swirls. The feel of him in my hand, his thick liquid oozing. His wrist at my mouth. Warm water and his hands caressing. Our fingers entwined. Oh, oh.

I reached my own fingers down between my legs and for a miracle came up only with wetness and an already straining nub. No pain. I felt for a second, and I was bumpy and suddenly itchy--like, unbearably, insanely itchy. I must be healing, then. I felt for my stitches, on my thighs and closer in, but for all the pain I felt in that moment, none of it was fresh. I wanted to laugh in relief, so I did. I snuggled in for a moment, remembering, my fingers drifting over the sheets. They'd been clean just yesterday. I laughed again.

As I started to doze, I remembered: He didn't leave. _He didn't leave me._

With a quickness my body hadn't known in a coon's age, I rose from the bed and headed out. A momentary panic filled me as I crossed the hall, but then I found what I was looking for. The guest room, ordinary in the light of day, and the closet clean and empty, its contents resting in the middle of the room. I went to the closet and knelt (ache and itchiness, but no pain), running my palm over where I knew he was. Suddenly a strong throb of longing and contentment and a ball of some feeling like warmth and tenderness and lightness and intensity filled me and I sank down. If I could have crawled into that hatch, I would have. My chest heaved. I pressed my cheek into the carpet and closed my eyes, nearly hyperventilating with need.

That little longing in me--nothing like last night--tripped off other feelings. Dread, something like hopelessness. I knew in my gut he wouldn't stay forever, and the thought of him walking away again enraged me and made my throat close up and made the room swirl to black all at once. I ached with losing him all over again, even though I knew he was right here. It made me wonder why he'd come. We hadn't talked about anything last night, I was so out of my head. I blanched at the memory of it. I, Sookie Stackhouse, had begged--begged!--Eric Northman to stay with me. There would be no living with him now.

With shame I realized that now someone knew exactly how broken I really was. And it wasn't just someone--it was Eric, who could hold it over my head for the rest of my life, who could use it to his advantage, as he always did. Knight in shining armor, come to save the poor damsel in distress. _Shit_--pardon my French. I didn't know what his intentions were. Was he protecting his assets, was he... what? I couldn't think how this benefited him, except that being off my rocker and unable to leave the house meant he couldn't hire me out to other vamps for their crazy interrogations and events. And I knew in general vamps didn't care so much about humans that they'd make this kind of effort. He couldn't have been looking for a simple roll in the hay. I was way too much work last night for something like that. My body didn't respond the way I wanted. I couldn't control my emotions, even now. I was like a ping pong ball all the time. I was a mess.

But Eric... He had been great, I realized with astonishment. My heart flooded to overflowing with the memories. Last night he'd been so fiercely protective, so tender. Yesterday was the worst--the worst ever--and he had come in and scooped me up from the puddle I was on the floor and he didn't ask for anything except to let him heal me. He'd bathed me in his blood, for goodness sake. He'd looked at my--oh god, my chest was tightening and I felt that sickening shame in my stomach again, feeling so small and so worthless... He'd looked at my mangled sex and he'd kissed it. He'd kissed it and hadn't made a face, except to regard me with care. My breath caught in my throat just then and I lingered on the memory of his beautiful face so close to mine, so intent. He'd made me feel last night like I was still whole, or could be whole again. He'd given me pleasure despite the heaping mess I was. He hadn't acted with pity--I couldn't have stood that. He'd called me beautiful. He'd called me dear one. And he'd bathed me like I was a baby--well, not _quite_ like a baby, I remembered with a flush--and the look in his eye was almost... reverent.

I didn't know what to think, but I knew what I felt. _Want_. Want him into the core of my bones, from the tippy top of my head down to my unpainted toenails. It might bite me in the ass later, but right now all I wanted was to be near him and have him hold me and tell me everything would be all right.

Someday soon I knew we'd have to talk about all this--why he'd abandoned me, why he'd bothered to come back. I knew I would be mad at him again for leaving me alone for so long. But just now my longing was so intense it scared me. I thought back to his arms around me, to him covering me with his big, cool form, and my body relaxed all over again. _Safe._ In his arms, and in his arms only, it seemed, I felt safe and contented. Given the terror that threaded up me even now, that was no small thing.

Just now, just to myself, I realized I'd give up anything to keep that feeling. Rubbing my hand along the thin carpet, a small bubble of hope rose in me.

_What if he really could be mine?_

***

I was still laid out on the closet floor, napping, when Bonnie arrived a little while later.

For once I was glad for my telepathy. I heard her coming long before she reached the house. She was replaying last night's fight between her grandbabies and thinking she was too old for teenage squabbles anymore, and was wishing my house was closer to Shreveport so she wouldn't have to drive so far. She was wondering what shape I'd be in today and whether she should insist on taking me for a walk to get my strength up. I groaned. Not outside. I couldn't, and I didn't want to explain it to her.

I sat up and pulled the shirt as far down over me as I could. I was glad Eric was bigger than me (and slightly shivered at the thought), but I was in just a t-shirt and nothing else and it wasn't proper for Bonnie to find me this way, especially sprawled out on the closet floor in the guest room like a lunatic.

I stood carefully out of habit and put the closet's belongings back in place. Bonnie was used to working for supes, but that didn't mean I wanted her to know Eric was here if he didn't. Like with so many important things, we hadn't had a lot of time to talk last night, so I just tried to make the room as normal as possible.

I tiptoed back to my room and headed to the bathroom. It felt almost as good to be able to walk without pain as it did to discover that Eric was still here. I relished it, moving my limbs in wide strides. For the first time in a long time, I washed my face and the water felt cool. I brushed my teeth carefully, appreciating their slick cleanness when I was done. I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed the change: My skin was clearer, pinker. The bruise-like circles under my eyes were fading. My eyes were still weary but less scared somehow. I was amazed at how much better I felt.

Eric: Does a body good.

My hair was still a disaster and I decided that my big activity for the day would be to wash it. But not just now. Suddenly I was ravenous in a way I hadn't been in a long, long while. And thirsty. I smelled miraculous things coming from the kitchen. Sizzling bacon and something cheesy. My stomach growled in approval. I put on my robe from behind the bathroom door and slipped on my slippers and started to walk toward the kitchen when Bonnie caught up with me.

"Good morning, dear," she said warmly. "My, don't you look rosy. A good night's sleep sure does agree with you. Now, scoot on back to your room and I'll bring your breakfast in a minute."

She actually made little shooing motions with her hand and I found myself under the covers once again. She placed a glass of orange juice on the table beside the bed, along with a few magazines. It was so nice to lay here, smelling Eric, and not feeling that stabbing pain. It calmed my mind just a little, even though I was still aware of a slightly crazy need to catalog every sound I heard.

In a few minutes, she returned with a plate that made my stomach gurgle happily. Cheesy grits, bacon and an egg. And a few vitamins on the side of the plate.

"Mr. Northman left a note to be sure you took your vitamins," she said by way of explanation. I recognized one of them: Iron supplements. She didn't comment further and that made me happy, too.

The food smelled delicious and tasted even better. It was like my taste buds had come back to life, too. I cleaned my plate and found the food in my stomach made me want to slip back to sleep. So I did.

***

Here's what I discovered about vampire blood today: It still had the same effects it always had. It still ramped up my ability shield unwanted thoughts. Thank goodness. I couldn't have stood Bonnie's thoughts yelling at me all day. And it surely healed my tenderest parts, just like always. But it somehow was also the best sleep aide I'd ever had. I slept off and on all day, finally making up some of the sleepless nights over the past month. I was only interrupted by one phone call, the occasional bad dream--not a terror but not pleasant, either--and by Bonnie, who wanted to be sure I ate lunch.

It was around 4 when I stirred again, and I smiled when I saw the sky getting rosy and magenta with the promise of twilight. Eric would be up soon. I found myself giddy and wanting to look nice for him. Stupidly, I felt like I was getting ready for a date. I picked out a slip to put on after I got out of the shower and I called for Bonnie to tell her what I was going to do. I didn't need her to help, really, but I thought she should know.

That turned out to be a mistake, because she insisted on sitting in the old chair in my room while I showered, in case I needed help. I would have welcomed it if I were still as sore today as I was yesterday. But then, if I were as sore, Eric wouldn't be here and I probably wouldn't care about my hair.

She even insisted on starting the water and helping me to the shower. When she stood expectantly in the room after bringing me in front of the tub, I looked at her confused.

"Take off your shirt, dear," she said briskly. "I'll help you up into the tub."

"Oh no, I'm sure I can do it," I said, terrified of her seeing my scars. I slapped on my happy smile.

But she insisted, holding her hand up and beckoning for my shirt. I didn't know how to tell her that I was more mobile since having my vampire's blood and didn't need help. Most people knew that vampires fed from humans but it didn't seem to be common knowledge that it sometimes went the other way. Besides, the thought of how I got his blood made me blush.

So she gently turned me away from her and had me hold my hands over my head like I was a toddler. She whipped it off me, offered me her hand into the tub, and then was gone, clicking the door shut behind her.

I stood there for a minute, just calming down. The hot water felt great spraying down on my face, my temple and dripping off my hair. I sighed. It reminded me of Eric dripping water into my mouth after I killed Breandon's henchman in my back yard. And then I thought of what we'd done after that, how he'd kissed me so sweetly and slowly. That reminded me of last night and how he'd healed me and how he'd kissed me when I was laying in the tub and I was suddenly throbbing with want. It was hard to concentrate on my hair after that.

I reached a hand down and felt myself healing and slippery. God blessed Eric. Whatever else he did, he somehow made it possible for me to feel good even through my pain and fear. I lingered on the thought, and my hand lingered too, and I smiled a small smile, imagining how he might heal me tonight.

Then, despite myself, I peeked down at myself for the first time in weeks. My smile crumbled and so did I.

I was red and flaking, scabbing. Some of my skin was coming off in sheets as it healed, revealing bright pink, new skin underneath. My stitches itched terribly and they were all red and bubbly around the thread. Oh yuck. _Yuck_. Oh god. How had he... How had he kissed me here? How could I have let him see me? How could he have _wanted_ to touch me? I felt like I was coming out of my skin and like the last-place sow in a 4-H contest--the one who would be made into ham hocks. Correction: I felt like the ham hocks. My hand flew from my sex to my face, covering me--as if that could undo what Eric had seen.

I sank to the bottom of the tub and curled tightly into a ball, my chest wracking with sobs. I was so gross. I was gross. I couldn't... I shouldn't have... Oh god.

I was vaguely aware of the water shutting off and of someone wrapping me in a towel and nudging me back to bed. I curled there, and crossed my legs, too, for good measure. I was still covered in the towel and the comforter--and didn't feel comforted. Not at all.

I squeezed my eyes shut and rocked myself there for a long, long while until I heard voices behind me.

"I don't know what happened," whispered a female voice. "She was in the shower for only a few minutes and I heard her fall and then crying."

"I will take it from here," said a hard voice. And then after a beat, "Go!" I shivered and I moved to inch further away from the voice, to hide.

I was shaking and sobbing harder now, and then the there was that strong arm and a mouth at my ear.

"Dear one," whispered the voice and something about his gentle hand and his voice made me calm. I blinked and turned slightly and saw Eric's clear eyes looking at me softly. I couldn't stand his sweetness. I couldn't stand him looking at me. I couldn't stand that he had seen me.

He cupped my cheek in his hand, gathering a tear with his thumb. "Dear one."

He covered my body in his and I felt that instant relief, that calm and quiet and safety. I shook a little in the aftermath of my shock but my breathing slowed. I grabbed his hand and pulled him closer to me, just needing this, just needing him to be here and keep me safe. Needing not to meet his eyes.

"Tell me what happened," he said softly, kissing my wet head.

I couldn't bear it. I shook my head and buried my face further into my knees. He gathered me a little closer and I sighed. But I shook my head again. What could I say? _How could you kiss me, I'm so disgusting?_ I might be half out of my head, but I still had some pride. Besides, I wasn't sure I wanted to hear his answer.

"Dear one," he began again, this time his tone a little more authoritative. He stroked my cheek. "I will be here all night. You can wait to tell me if you choose. But if there's something I can help with, I suggest you allow it."

_What's the catch?_ I thought bitterly. OK, so I guess I didn't put that totally out of my head. I leaned back into him and shook a little.

"Hold me tighter," I said finally. And he did. He pulled the little ball I'd become tight into his chest. "Just this. This is all I need for now."

I felt him nod into my wet hair and could swear he was breathing deep. He kissed my head and I almost flinched away. I didn't want to be kissed. I felt ruined for sweetness. I cried and Eric soothed me again with his hand. I lay there, shivering some and being still some until I drifted to sleep, safe in my vampire's arms.

***

I woke when I felt his palm on my hip and his mouth kissing my ear. It felt so lovely that I craned my head toward him. He obliged and kissed my cheek, my jawline, my neck, my shoulder. I heard him whisper something soft and lilting in that ancient language. I wished absently that he'd read me the phonebook in that language, it was so soothing.

"I love when you speak to me like that," I whispered, my voice thick with sleep.

He brought his lips to my ear and breathed some more sweet phrases to me. Despite my fear, I unwrapped my arms from my knees and arched into him. "Mmmm," I sighed. I smelled him for the first time tonight and grew hungry for more. "I could listen to that all night."

His hand alighted on my stomach and though my mind protested, I shivered in pure pleasure. _Bless you, Eric,_ I thought. _Bless you._

And so he did: He whispered soft things, delicate things to me in a tongue that probably hadn't been spoken for centuries. Meanwhile, his tongue was kissing, caressing me into a state. He caressed my stomach and moved to my hip, rubbing my legs lightly.

I was so relaxed and felt so safe that I wasn't paying attention to where my thoughts were taking me.

"How could you kiss me, Eric?" I whispered.

"Like this," he said softly, caressing the flesh of my neck, just below my ear.

I tingled but that wasn't what I meant and I told him so. "No, I mean, last night. How could you stand it? To kiss me... there. It's so terrible." I hated the despair in my voice but there wasn't a thing I could do about it.

I definitely wasn't looking at him then. I buried my face in the pillow. Why was I asking him this? Couldn't I leave well enough alone?

But he suddenly seemed to grasp what I was asking and he wouldn't have it. His hand drifted up my belly and to my throat, turning my face with gentle fingers. His eyes were thoughtful, his brow a little furrowed. I could almost see the gears turning in his 1000-year-old head.

I didn't at all expect what he said next.

"Sookie, you are a warrior," he began. "You have faced down Weres and shifters and witches and.... and fairies... and even my own kind. You have put your beautiful body in harm's way more times than I care to recall." He studied my belly button suddenly, rubbing his hand strongly against it. "And you have always been victorious. It's one of the things I.... appreciate about you. You are brave and loyal."

He paused and ran his fingertips over my hip and up my side. I couldn't help but shiver at it.

"But warriors--we all bleed and tear and rip apart. And when our skin knits together again--whether quickly or slowly--we howl with pain." He had been exploring my body with his eyes but just then his eyes came to mine and clouded over. Mine did too and tears spilled over. It was true. I had howled more times than I wanted to remember in the past month--heck, since I found out about this whole supernatural world.

His fingers ghosted over my collarbone and he leaned to plant a kiss on my stunned mouth.

"I hated to see your injuries, Sookie," he said stiffly and he shook his head angrily. Oh boy. Here it comes. _You're disgusting, Sookie. I could barely stand it._ "This is why women were not permitted to battle in my human life. They can be hurt in ways men cannot."

He looked at me with such rage in his eyes suddenly and his fangs had run down, and I froze in panic.

"Do you remember when you were in the hospital and I lifted your gown to inspect your injuries?" He ground his teeth together.

I nodded.

"To see what those monsters did to you filled me with rage," his eyes burned darkly and I was glad I wasn't on his bad side. His hands were stone fists. "I would raise them from the dead just to drain them and tear them limb from limb all over again, if I could--and it still would not be retribution enough."

I'll drink to that, I thought.

"But I kissed you--there, as you say," he smiled a small, wistful smile, "because this delicate, wonderful part of you paid the price for your bravery and deserves honor."

Well, you could have knocked me over with a feather. Huh. I wouldn't go so far as to call myself a warrior--that was laying it on a bit thick, I thought. But it was true that I'd protected those I loved and myself from lots of bad folks--supe and not--and managed to get myself out of a lot of pickles, even saving Eric a few times in the process. It was no small feat, and not easy, but I did it. When you put it that way, my wounds almost seemed like something to be proud of.

While I was turning this over in my head, his hooded eyes turned to me and he gave me that sexy, lethal smile of his. "Besides the obvious fact that your pussy is beautiful."

I almost laughed, but the look on his face told me I shouldn't. Who talks like that?

He paused to gaze longingly at the body part in question, and, I swear, it flirted back. "Your pussy is among your most exquisite physical attributes, my lover, and that is saying quite a lot. And I say _is beautiful_, dear one, because all those cuts and scratches and gouges, they are superficial.

"You will heal. You are already better than you were one month ago, and now that you've had my blood you will be better still. Your pussy will be healed and perfect again soon," he said, his hand tempted toward my cleft. But I crossed my legs tight to make a point. And then with a devilish grin, he added, "And you know I won't pass up any opportunity to, as you say, get in your pants."

I laughed in disbelief. He was too much. His little ode to my lady bits left me filled with so many feelings that I didn't know which to start with.

But then I didn't have to worry because he shifted and was suddenly on top of me, growling playfully in my ear, "But as I recall--very vividly, I might add--you weren't wearing any pants of any sort last night. Nor this night. You tantalize me, Sookie Stackhouse."

He nudged his knee against mine, seeking access. And I thought of letting him but I couldn't. To him my lady bits might be beautiful, but to me they still looked for all the world like the side of an abandoned house, splintered and peeling.

"I don't think I can, Eric," I said, regretfully, looking away. "Thank you all the same, though." I placed my hands around his strong forearms, hoping he understood how much his words had touched me. And then I found myself stroking his arms and enjoying the sensation. They felt so good in my palms. Straining and strong, just like some other parts of him that I wanted.

"Nonsense," he whispered, his sly smile inches from my mouth. "Let me see how much better you are today, lover." He almost growled. His eyes flashed.

He dipped his head down for a long, languorous kiss that left me writhing underneath him, my honored veteran standing up for salute in my weary thighs. He let out small sounds that made me tremble. He was a cage over me and I felt so safe here. I kissed his forearms, sucking and biting and loving the feel of it. And finally, I just let him in. What the hell, I thought. I'm not made of stone. I might regret it later, but here was this gorgeous man who had just sung the praises of my most wounded body part, was kissing and licking and sucking at me like we'd never been apart and I was keeping him out. I was surely crazy now.

"I'm broken, Eric," I breathed as final warning.

"Good thing my blood heals, then," he groaned into my ear, his hardness pressing against my thigh.

My breath caught, and whatever else my pussy was, it was ready for him.

With a deep breath, I uncrossed my legs and spread them just an inch, glancing at Eric shyly. I kissed him again on his arm, his shoulders, because he tasted good and because I didn't want to see his face when he saw me.

He reached a hand down between us and rubbed softly the sensitive skin between my hips, gently warning me that he would be at my sex soon. A strangled sound came from me and was swallowed by his insistent mouth. I rocked my hips. I clutched him to me tightly and felt a wildness run through me. I used my nails on his neck, his back and around to his nipples. Ah. I forgot about that. He made sounds that weren't so small and I spread my legs wider, inviting him now. I surely had a split personality.

He bit my ear just then and the tiny pain of his fang shot through me, setting my breath to gallup. Oh god. I whimpered, open throated and head tossed back. He sucked and nibbled and I liked to have come undone.

"Perfect," he sighed as his fingers dipped into my folds. I had the instinct to close my legs, to change my mind, but then his finger found my wetness and my nub and started twirling. I groaned loud and long and found my knee resting on his hip suddenly. No pain. Praise be.

"Ummmmm... Healing quite well," he grunted, a cocky smile on his face. I leaned up and kissed him just before he moved out of my reach.

"Hmmm, yes," I answered shakily. Was I really going to do this?

I felt his fangs on my nipples and about finished just then, and then he was between my legs and licking.

"Mmmm, beautiful, Sookie," he growled, and I could hear a wildness there I hadn't noticed before. I wanted him all the way inside me. "You are... healing... beautiful. Gods, I love... I love your pussy."

For a miracle he just lingered there, and eventually I couldn't help but look at him. He smiled triumphantly at that and place a kiss on my mound theatrically. I laughed between groans and shook my head. He licked and nibbled and brought me to the edge several times until I was crying out, sobbing for release. Finally I was about to lose my mind when he whispered up from between my legs, "Shall I check for what else needs healing, dear one?"

I was so on the edge I couldn't answer. But I guess it was a rhetorical question anyway, because I watched as dhis eyes twinkle and then his fang clasped onto his finger and blood ooze out. He started to run it around the stitches, which I have to say didn't feel like much anymore. And then he bit again and I could feel him at my entrance. My breath caught and before he could ask, I grunted loudly and pushed forcefully down on his finger, taking him inside.

We both groaned. _I want. I want,_ was all I could think. _Give me._

His finger explored, checking for tears, perhaps, but certainly massaging and seeking the soft spot inside me. When he found it, I called out in relief and surprise and pure, unadulterated lust.

"Oh yes, Eric," I called out. "Oh god, yes. Now."

He growled and fell on me, sucking and swirling and probing just the right spot. Just right. Just. Just. Ohhhh.

I was reaching and growling and when I felt him nuzzle the crook in my leg I fell right over the edge, hard. I heard Eric growl something repeatedly in his old tongue.


	7. Chapter 7: Open and Closed

**A/N:** So I've been listening to my new Swell Season album (deal, people. I love it). And there's this little monologue Glen Hansard does, describing one of his songs. He says, "Your head, your logical self is saying, 'It's grand. She loves me. We spend all our time together. Her parents like me. We have this great thing.' But your heart is an abandoned train that's speeding, being driving by a lyon (But because he's Irish, it sounds like "layon"). Just braaaaaaaaaah! On ice. Khhhhhhhaaaaaa! Your heart is just out of control."

Sounds about right for our telepath and our Viking.

This is getting harder to write because even I am getting tired of the angst. But I'm just stubborn enough that I can't just let sex fix Sookie. And I can't just let them declare themselves and live happily ever after. (Maybe that's why I like Sookie so much. We're two of a pair.) Plus, I like the tease. There's more to be revealed here--hopefully in a fun and erotic way. Hope you enjoy and keep commenting.

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Disclaimer:** I am not Charlaine Harris, and don't own Sookie or Eric. But I do have a dirty mind.

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Chapter 7: Open and Closed**

**Sookie's POV**

Eric was licking lazily. When he saw me looking, he smiled a fangy smile and licked me again and I about collapsed in the best, liquidy way.

"Lover," he whispered, and the cool air on my slick skin caused a tremor up my body. "Look at me."

I found I couldn't resist him, or didn't want to. I was too relaxed, a state I knew far too little of lately. So I lifted my heavy head to gaze at his eyes. He looked delicious. I could see he wasn't done with me yet, that sent a thrill of pure pleasure through me.

"You are healing quite well, inside and out," he smiled, almost smugly. "I have checked." He looked like he wanted a gold star, or a merit badge. I laughed softly and stroked his head, his face. He was not deterred, though, and he nibbled voraciously at me. I felt his fang tickle across my folds. I shuddered and closed my eyes. A little moan escaped me. He waited until I looked at him again.

"You look quite better than you did even yesterday."

His tongue parted my folds and found my still sensitive nub. My breath caught, and he played with it, orchestrating my breath with his tongue until I was groaning.

"You feel exquisite."

He closed his eyes and nuzzled into me. I emitted a high sound of surprise to see his face pressed full into me, not holding back at all. I could see that I was still flaking and peeling and it made me nauseous. But to see him--oh to see him reveling in me anyway did something to me I can't explain. I felt tiny and broken still, but safe in his hands--and wild, too. I couldn't believe him, that he wanted me this way, now. I tingled against him and felt myself building, a sudden desire taking me. I pulled at his hair and rubbed myself on him. I groaned and nearly lost myself to him again when he put his big hands on my hips to still me. I sobbed in confusion, in need.

"Patience, lover," he said, a dark smile in his eyes. "Now watch me."

I couldn't help but. My chest was heaving. I was riveted.

Sure he had my attention, he went back to his slow tease.

"You taste divine."

He held my eyes as he stretched his long tongue out and just into me, licking all the way up to my nub, gathering wetness as he went. I rotated my hips on his tongue, getting just the tension I needed. And then I contracted--back arching, head falling back, knees rising. Yes. Yes.

That position did remarkable things to how he was touching me and suddenly his fingers were there again, stroking carefully into me, looking for the spot. I made some kind of sound but I can't say what it was. It just continued on and broke with my breathing. I bit my lip and looked at him with effort. I knew he'd like it, and he did.

And then without words, he seemed to know what I wanted more than anything, because his jeans were off and he was pressing his strong, cool chest into mine, gliding along my folds, teasing my nub. I liked to have fallen out at the pleasure of it all.

He pulled my face to him and took my mouth in a hard, long kiss until I was clean out of breath. With my new mobility, I wrapped my legs around his waist hard and brought him to me, guiding him with my hand until I felt him nudge inside.

You might think this would be a scary moment, but it was just like when he came to me after I killed the fairy: Like he'd never left. It was as if Crystal had never been killed, as if Niall had never discovered me, as if Eric had never left my house. As if I'd never been hurt--ever. We both groaned deeply, in relief. I knew now what Eric had meant those months ago when he said this was best. This was. It was _best_.

I opened myself to him further, holding him close and buried my face into his chest. I sighed deeply, contentedly.

"Missed you," I murmured, feeling him fill me, running my fingers through his hair, rocking slightly. "Ah, missed you."

He emitted a low sound, some beautiful word from long ago, and thrust into me. Just like that, the time for tender words was over.

I arched and bit into his nipple lightly and I heard him groan.

"Harder," he rasped. "Drink."

Mmmm, yes. I took his nipple in my mouth again, sucking for a second, savoring, and working up my nerve. Then I bit as hard as I could just above it. I felt his flesh tear and in the second before he started healing, I sucked hard. His groan was so deep that I felt it rumbling through his chest and into me, vibrating my nipples and folds deliciously. His hands pulled at my bottom, bringing me onto him more directly, more insistently. I let out a high, strangled sound and couldn't have been happier.

He pressed deliberately, mindfully into me, but with force. I wanted, suddenly, unexpectedly, for him to _bring it on_. I didn't say it. A tiny dread held my mouth shut. I was still so wounded. If I was going to collapse from anything tonight, I didn't want it to be from pain.

It was just a passing thought or feeling--or... something--anyway and I released it as Eric bombarded me. Then my body remembered and I kept up. The sounds of him, the feel of him, the rightness of this, overwhelmed me until I was calling out, begging him to bite me, too. When he did, a sharp pleasure surged through me, built and crashed into me, stilling my brain while my body moved and thrashed and clinched and, finally, finally released.

I fell back with pleasure, grasping at him inside and out, wanting to keep him. I must have been half out of my mind because I started thinking about Eric as a pet, someone I'd have to get permisson from Gran to have around. _Can I keep him? I promise to feed him and clothe him and take real good care of him. I petted at his neck for good measure._

I didn't stop moving, not wanting to give up any little part of him, even as my healing body became more sensitive to every movement. He seemed to appreciate the gesture by the way he was thrusting now, groaning, his eyes on me in a way that made me feel like a field mouse to his hawk. I knew that look: I'd seen it the first time I'd laid eyes on him. He'd been sprawled on his throne in Fangtasia and he'd been looking at me so hard I thought he was counting my eyelashes. He'd called me sweet. I'd scoffed.

And just now the memory of that craving look in his eyes combined with the reality of it in front of me made me want to show him how not-sweet I could be. I scratched my nails up over his chest, bit against his shoulders and dragged myself weakly up him until I was at his neck. I snaked my tongue out and licked his ear.

I whispered, "Baby, I want to watch you. Come for me now." I tried not to growl, but I'm not sure I succeeded. And then I bit his neck, as hard as I could.

And what happened then was maybe one of the most amazing thing I ever experienced. My big, Viking vampire rammed into me hard--OK, that did scare me. I was so used to tearing apart at the slightest thing and Eric was _not_ slight, not by a long shot. But I didn't feel any twinges of pain. Instead, I felt flooded with lust, relief, joy....

Love.

I blinked.

_Love_.

And just like that I opened to him in a different way. I felt pulled in by him and floating at once. I couldn't stop myself from getting swept up, from continuing to rock as I felt him swell and release deep into me. Love, safety, contentment, lust--lots of that--and the feel of him on me, in me, holding me took me over the edge one more time.

I took a minute to collect myself and when I looked into Eric's eyes, he was looking at me baldly, like he had those days when he didn't know who he was and I was all he had in the world. Unsure--Eric, unsure! Surprised. Horny.... And something bigger, harder to define, there staring back at me through those pale blue eyes.

He pulled me in close and kissed a kiss that meant business and then another and it went on like that until my mouth felt sore and puffy and a chill touched all my wet places. I could feel him softening, finally, inside me but his kiss told me something different, like he'd never stop this, like he'd stay inside me forever if I wanted him to. And in that moment, boy, did I want him to. I shivered and wrapped myself around him like a limpet, not releasing him, holding him into me as aftershocks rippled through me.

With all the kissing, I thought Eric would want to go again, but I was so taken by exhaustion just then that I hoped he'd change his mind. Drowsily, I let out a long contented sigh and stroked his back, enjoying the smooth hardness of it. I still didn't know what his intentions were but in that moment, he felt for all the world like my Eric, like the Eric I had almost fallen in love with.

**Eric's POV**

Watching my Bonded sleep is a rare delight. To feel her warm skin against my hand, to watch how the moonlight glowed against her now pink skin was a gift. Her eyes fluttered softly with her dreams and her delectable mouth was slack, trembling with breath. Her bottom twitched with dreams and she occasionally stiffened and balled her hands. Her face scrunched up on the side that rested on my chest.

We certainly were bonded now--now more than ever after the intense moment we shared this night. I hadn't expected it. The bond went from decimated by the fairies' dark arts to spread wide. And what I found there... It was my heart's desire. Lust. Trust. And love. Big love. I wondered if Sookie understood what it was, if she'd even admit it to herself if she had. The bond was so open tonight that I felt inside her, could feel her dreams in me.

I had been away too long, I thought, scowling to myself. I rearranged her long blond hair on her back, fanning it out prettily and then grasping it all in my hand, pulling lightly till her head listed to the side. _Mine_.

I refused to dwell on what I'd done when we were apart. It had all been distasteful: All the negotiating with my new masters, all the strategy required to keep my position and keep Sookie safe. Every single fangbanger. I let the thought slip from my mind and moved on to more pleasant things.

I caressed her lips and smiled. She'd never fed from me without my requesting it before. She'd never used this mouth to command me like that before. I chuckled, thinking of her lips at my ear, growling her kitten growl, commanding me to come as she watched. The thought made mad want to wake her and command her, too. But I knew she was still healing. She needed to rest.

My fingers drifted over her hair and to her arms. These thin things she'd used to hold me to her, tell me she'd missed me. No small thing from my Bonded, who has made a religion of denying her feelings for me. I smiled ruefully, recalling all the times she'd held her back stiff as I held her, all the times she held back from her heart's desire for me. So stubborn.

My Bonded's little confession--ah, it cheered me, made me greedy for more. I would like to think this would be the end of this impetuous resistance to me--that we could move on to the logistics of light-tight rooms and permanent addresses--but I know my Bonded too well. There is still much on her mind and, I fear, many hurdles to cross. And there is the very prominent issue of Sookie's mental health. Both evenings I have been here, she has suffered greatly. I flashed back to Ignatius. Vampire's natures are set at the time they are turned, and he never improve. His maker eventually staked him when Ignatius lunged at her one too many times, ripping a limb from her in a fit of insanity. She had taken a year to regrow that leg.

Sookie was human, and her mind was more malleable. I rubbed her arm hopefully. I could heal, I told myself. She would improve.

Not wanting to dwell on that, either, I drifted back to the greatest gift of all. The feel of her warm, wet pussy pressing into my face, my cheek, my nose, my lips dripping with her arousal--the thing of a hundred fantasies hatched during my long hours on my Fangtasia throne--made me lick my lips even now. Honestly, how she could think surface damage could negate the beauty underneath.... She was so young. I often forgot, she was so strong and determined. Human, I reminded myself. Human and young. I willed myself never to forget again.

I was leaning down to her, kissing the spot on her neck where I'd bitten, covering it with my blood to protect her from Bonita's prying eyes, when my lover roused. I could feel a tiny surge of lust and contentment, followed by a shiver down her gorgeous frame. Then she was looking into my eyes and her gaze was soft, her smile wide and shy. I rubbed her cheek and kissed her lip, nibbling, not willing to let go.

"Dear heart, have you had your dinner?" I asked, hearing her stomach working. I would need a Blood, as well, if Sookie was to get through this evening unscathed.

She looked at me blankly, as if food was irrelevant, and shook her head.

"Shall I feed you?" I asked leaning in close and growling. She laughed. I loved the sound.

She is mine, and I shall make her healthy, I thought as I regretfully rose and wandered to the kitchen.

"A drink, my lover?" I called as I procured myself a TrueBlood and looked at the tiresome cartons in the refrigerator. Human food all looked the same to me. She asked for milk and I procured that, as well, pouring her a drink and putting my Blood in the microwave to heat. I would have to remind Bobby to bring a case of the stuff here during the day so I would be well stocked. I was losing my resistance to Sookie's charms and was feeding on her far too often. I wasn't sure that bottled synthetic dreck would make Sookie's fae-laced blood any less appealing, but I thought I should but on the show, at least.

I was leaning into the fridge, considering two different covered dishes filled with brown, lumpy matter when I felt hands on my bottom and a warm kiss on my back. My Bonded leaned against me, pressing her cheek and hot breasts into my back and sighed.

"What are you feeding me?" she asked, teasing, running her nails over my bottom.

I stood and turned, leering at her, pushing my hips forward slightly. "Whatever you like, whenever you want it, my lover."

She groaned and rolled her eyes. "Oh, Lord." She shook her head and put her hands on her hips. Sookie must be feeling better. She was impertinent again.

I scowled down at the dishes in my hand. "Which do you choose?"

She grabbed one of the dishes from my hand. "Well, since that one's a container of salsa left over from the chili, I choose this one."

She removed my blood from the microwave, shaking it absently before handing it to me and placed her dish in the microwave. She moved around the kitchen easily, walking almost assuredly and I could feel in the bond that she was content and a little tender.

"What did you do today, my lover?" I asked, as she sat with her dish and a spoon.

She took a big bite of the food--whatever it was--and sighed in happiness as it rippled down her throat. Her contentment pleased me.

"Not much," she yawned. "I got up and thought last night was a dream and panicked. But then I remembered and went to the guest room and sat there in the closet with you for a bit."

I sat frozen, the lip of the bottle at my mouth. She had come to me. In my rest, she had come to me and been with me, wanted me. Unbidden, willingly. I cursed Sookie's old house. I cursed the tiny space designed for daytime rest. I cursed Bill. So small-minded. So secretive. He could have made the room light-tight, and instead he carved a hole in the dirt to lay himself in. Imbecile. But then I flashed on an image of my Bonded curled with the dark-haired vampire and my fangs began to run down. If I were to light-tight the room, I would be the only vampire to ever lay with her during the day. _Mine._ I would have to consult with Bobby about the least invasive way to make it so.

"But then Bonnie got here," Sookie continued, oblivious to my impulse to stake her ex, who lingered in the wood outside even now. I hoped he could see us sitting here naked. Sookie spooned another mound of food toward her mouth. "She's a big thinker. I mean, her thoughts are loud. I can hear her mind from a mile a way, seems like. I would have been mortified if she had found me on the floor in the closet just laying there like a lunatic."

Mmmm. The image of her laying in only my shirt above me made me hard. I would have liked to have seen that.

Sookie looked at me sideways, taking in my mood, I thought. She gave me an exasperated look and went on.

"I tell you, the first day she was here, I about collapsed from the pain. It was like she was yelling at me. It felt like I was a kid, before I learned any shields. I had a pounding headache, and she was only here for a few hours."

She looked up at me suddenly, studying me with a grateful, confused expression. She bit into her lower lip. She looked like she was deciding whether to say something to me so I leveled my gaze at her, inviting her, daring her. She always surprises me.

She placed her hand on mine on top of the table tentatively. "Thank you, Eric, for sending her," she started and she suddenly seemed as terrified as she'd been the night I arrived. Her eyes glanced to the table and I saw a drop fall on her hand. "I... I was in a real bad way that day. In a real bad way for a while now, as you can tell." She glanced up apologetic and then hid her eyes from me. I filled with rage, remembering the decapitated bodies of those fairies, and my hands itched with the need to shred them all over again. "And even though it scared the bejeesus out of me when she arrived at my door, I can't tell you... I can't tell you how much it means to me that you... thought of me and that you sent her."

Her voice trailed off then, barely a whisper to human ears. I was unable to pull my eyes from her.

I wanted to tear something apart. I wanted to lay her down on this table and kiss her until her tears turned to moans. I wanted to break this table, this house. I wanted to smile in victory--that my Bonded had finally, _finally_, conceded something to me. I wanted to go back in time and encamp on her front porch and wait her out instead of returning to Fangtasia without her. I wanted to... I wanted to.... Feelings. Filthy, uncontrollable, unpredictable things.

I must have betrayed my... emotions... because she was looking at me in fear. I wanted to kiss her tears. I felt just as confused as she had just looked. I suddenly felt this hateful sensation, this flood of... contrition. I wanted to apologize for leaving her, for neglecting her, for believing her, for letting her have her way, for not saving her in time, for ever leaving this place, for having anything in my life but her. I did not care for the direction my mind was taking my body, so I opted for the easiest, yet truthful response.

"Dear heart," I whispered, rubbing my thumb over her cheek, kissing her softly on one cheek and then the other. And then in my native tongue: "I would meet the sun tomorrow if it could erase what you've been through, what I've done to you."

I ran my hand down to her delicious, edible neck, rubbing there too. I pulled her to me for a kiss. I ran my hand down her arm to her hand, studied it and then kissed it.

Then in English: "I should have done it sooner." The words came out stiffly, unaccustomed in my mouth. I studied her hands, which were now resting in mine. I had never dropped my gaze from another being, vampire, demon, fairy--anything. And yet here was this frail, 26-year-old human woman and I could not look her in the eye. I marveled again at her power over me. I never would have imagined.

Just then, I saw moisture on her hand and looked up to see her crying. It wasn't gratitude anymore, but more deep grief. Her beautiful face twisted and she curled into herself, dropping her head between her knees, stealing her hands from me. Rage flashed through me. I'd made it worse. How had I made it _worse_?

I dropped to my knees and gathered her to me. By Freya, the sun would be preferable to this pain. I felt compelled, the words dragged from my mouth by some magic that was not my own.

"I am sorry, my love," I said into her hair. "So sorry."

She sobbed into me, heaving with the effort of it.

"I was all alone," she said in a high, hopeless whine. "I hurt so much. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't... I couldn't stop seeing them... seeing them... c-c-cutting me... And teeth and... Their sharp teeth and... and biting!"

I wanted to rip a throat out. My hands flexed but I managed to keep a tenuous grip on my emotions and my reactions. _Human and young_, I reminded myself. I put my hands on her shoulders and stroked her gently. But deep inside... Very, very deep inside my still heart, I felt like a newborn vampire: Human emotions so strong, mingling with my bloodlust and my physical strength to make me dangerous, confused. I reached to gather her to me but as I did so, her hand flung up, her eyes still squeezed tightly closed.

"And laughing..." she growled, trembling. Her little fingers balled into fists, as they had done in her sleep. "Laughing!"

Her growl wasn't kittenish anymore. It was the roar of a lioness, protective and provoked.

Just then a surge of rage and desperation and terror and need slammed into me through the bond and I found Sookie fighting my embrace, pushing against me, shrinking away, curling down, winding her way out of my embrace. Her hands and arms beat at my chest, my arms, my neck, my face. Her leg reached up to kick wherever she could. And roared.

"No!" she shrieked. "NO. No! Nononononononono. Get off me. Off! Don't touch me. Stop!"

Her eyes looked around wildly, not seeing. And just like that, the bond slammed shut again.


	8. Chapter 8: Doctor's Orders

**A/N: **Sorry this chapter took so long to get out, but I hope you enjoy it. Thanks for all the amazing comments and reviews. This chapter is longer than the others and not so lemony. But important for the plot. I hope it's entertaining and the next chapter is already writing itself in my head. Enjoy and please comment!

**Disclaimer:** I don't own Eric or Sookie or Bobby Burnham, but Dr. Eugenides and Bonnie are mine.

**Chapter 8: Doctor's Orders**

**Sookie's POV**

Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea.

I lifted my head from the mattress and it felt like one of those little toys with a ball inside a ball, all swishy and disconnected from one another. I opened my sleep-caked eyes. My head wasn't actually moving. I felt like I'd spared the tonic, sucked down the gin and chased it with a bar brawl. Why were my fingers and shins stiff? And my neck? I'd slept without a pillow again.

I groaned and wiped the drool from my lip. I felt the light from the window and it weighed on me. For once, I didn't feel any dread or fear or sadness. This despair was in my bones, and they ached with it. I couldn't verbalize it, not even to myself. I had done something awful. I just knew it. I didn't have it in me to cry. I curled onto my side and clutched a pillow to my face, holding out the light. I just lay there, staring into the pillowcase for a while. It looked about as blank as I felt.

****

_Hard night_, I heard. _Poor dear._

I could hardly bring myself to care that Bonnie was pitying me. It felt too right to just lay here, staring at the pillow, blocking out from my mind every excess of emotion.

Bonnie had arrived a few minutes ago, screaming her thoughts about traffic and her old car and her grandbabies and her last image of me last night, all curled up in the tub and sobbing. Right. I'd forgotten. And I didn't care. I didn't want to care about anything. It was too hard. The fight had gone right out of me. My muscles felt slack against my bones and though I felt a growing urgency in my bladder, I didn't move. It wasn't worth it. It didn't matter.

And then Bonnie was at my door and tsking to herself silently.

I felt her sit on the side of my bed directly in front of me and saw the pillow slide out of my grasp. And then her face was in my view and I closed my eyes.

"Hello Sookie," she said briskly, using her wiry arms to rearrange the pillows behind me and prop me up like a doll on a child's bed. "It looks like last night was difficult. Now, do you need assistance to the toilet? And then perhaps we can finish that shower you started yesterday? Looks like your hair could use some attention."

Her fingers grasped at the mats around my head, trying in vain to arrange them pleasantly. I didn't speak. She waited.

Turned out I was better at this game than she was, because after a few minutes of silence, she stood, smoothed her pants over her hips and announced she would be back.

Maybe this is what vampires feel like when they're on downtown. I sure felt immobile. And dead.

****

A hot liquid seared my lips. I opened my eyes and saw Bonnie holding a mug of coffee to my mouth. With great effort, I opened slightly and let the hot, bitter liquid pool around my tongue. Bonnie placed her hand on my neck and tilted my head back and I found myself swallowing. My throat was parched and burning. I must have screamed last night. A lot.

I took deeper swallows and then sputtered when I needed breath. She pulled the cup away quickly and after a moment replaced it with a spoon. I felt the grits slip down my throat. It felt good. The cheese coated my mouth, my teeth. My stomach rumbled to life and I opened my mouth willingly. When the bowl was empty, Bonnie spooned something soft to my mouth. When I opened and swallowed, I discovered they were eggs. I ate the rest of those too.

"Now, dear, you need to help me with this," Bonnie said quietly, gently. I felt a pill at my lip and opened. She placed it on my tongue and I felt water pour in. I sputtered but then caught on. Her fingers massaged my throat as I swallowed.

"One more."

I felt the pill, the water, her fingers and then a napkin at my mouth. I hadn't been fed since I was a baby, and the kindness of it, and the necessity of it, made a keening grief rise in me. Inside, I felt like I was twisting and ripping apart. But outwardly, I couldn't get my body to move. I didn't have any energy. All that happened was that tears started sliding down my immobile face. Bonnie dabbed at those, too.

"Yes, that's right, dear," she said softly. "A very hard night, indeed. Shall we visit the bathroom now?"

She came blurrily into my vision and I nodded a half-inch. I felt the covers pull back from my legs and heard her suck in her breath.

With effort I glanced down and noted the pinking raised scars on my legs. I didn't have them yesterday. I must have done some real damage for those scars to still be there after having Eric's blood last night. At least I remember that, I thought absently. At least I'd had a moment of peace and joy and Eric had been here. A sharp panic filled me and I wondered if he'd left. I also noted that I was wearing Eric's Fangtasia t-shirt again. But then Bonnie was scooting me to the edge of the bed and asking me if I could stand. Then I was a the toilet, relieved.

"Can you hold yourself there, dear or would you like me to do it?"

I looked at her blankly and nodded my head, expending great effort to keep myself upright.

I heard the water start in the tub and when I was done I tried to stand but found myself carried on a wave of exhaustion. I waited helplessly for Bonnie to return. _Humiliating_, a tiny voice thought. But I couldn't help it, and I almost couldn't care. If she weren't here, I didn't know what I would do. I didn't know where I would be. Her kindness flooded me and I liked to have cried, but I couldn't work up the effort. I couldn't meet her eyes.

She lifted me and held me awkwardly as she maneuvered one leg after the other into the tub. "A few Epsom salts will help with that stiffness," she said, and when I was safely seated in the warm, pooling water she left to retrieve them. I looked down at myself. My knuckles were scabbed and sore, my nails ripped. My knees were throbbing but not bruised. I didn't understand. What had happened?

I dropped my hands into the water and waited, staring intently at the soap scum layered on the faucet. I felt the crystals fall under the stream of the water near my feet and then Bonnie's strong hands swirling the water to dissolve them. She was thinking that she'd done this backwards, that she should have gotten the salts before I was in the water, and she was trying hard to keep her eyes off my naked, injured body. She was picturing all the frail, sick people she'd given this same bath to over the years, and I have to say, my body didn't look half bad in comparison.

"There you go," she said proudly. "Now, you just lay there and relax. Where's your brush, dear? I'll try to get some of these tangles out so we can wash your hair. Oh--here we go. Now hold still and I'll be as gentle as I can be. You sure do have some pretty hair. I bet it's awful nice in the sun. You know, I always wanted blond hair growing up. I know it's silly. A Mexican girl on a Texas ranch hasn't got much chance of that. But still, one of the girls in the family my folks worked for had the prettiest, blondest hair that hung down to her butt and I just wished for it all the time."

I let Bonnie's yammering fill my empty spaces. She sighed and the brush tore through my scalp. My head yanked against the edge of the tub with every halting pass it made, but only lightly so I didn't mind it. In fact, the light pangs of discomfort distracted me from other, more permanent pains. I closed my eyes, relaxed into her sharp and soothing motions and listened as Bonnie told me about growing up on a ranch, about raising her six younger siblings, and fighting with her older brother.

"You should have seen that ranch," she said. "The way the light filled it in the afternoons. And oh! The big sky. We've got some big sky here, but there's nothing like seeing miles and miles of rolling hills with a big, blue sky above it. And dry! My, how dry it was there. Nothing like here. I've been in Louisiana for 10 years, but still hate the humidity every summer. Every year I tell my husband Sal that I want to go back to Texas. 'Let's pack up!' I tell 'im. 'I'll tell you what, I'm not living through one more season of heat so thick I feel like I'm walking through boiling marmalade. No sir.' 'Course, he always just nods and pats my hand and we never go anywhere. Ahhh. That's love for ya."

I could hear her chuckling but she sounded a million miles away. I wondered if I'd ever find someone who would pat my hand like that, who would entertain my annual complaints, who would stay with me always. My face felt heavy and I liked to have dropped completely under the water. But Bonnie held my head firm.

She told me about her older brother and younger sisters and brothers and how she'd learned to do a lot of the things she does in her job now as just a young girl. She watched the babies while her mama worked, tended to aches and scrapes and made sure dinner was on the table, all by the age of 12.

"I changed more diapers than I care to remember, made many meals, nursed broken bones, and when my folks got older, I did the same for them," she was saying thoughtfully. "I guess that's how I ended up in this field. I never understood how Americans could send their kin off to homes when they got old. Say what you will about us, but my people, we keep our loved ones close and we take care of them."

She sounded fierce now, reliving her disbelief. I couldn't disagree with her. I'd never have let Gran go to a home. She was my only family and had taken me in when my parents had died. I'd always been prepared to stay in this house with her and nurse her to her last breath when she needed it. And then I grew sad and hopeless, remembering that Gran's last breath had been in the kitchen and had been one filled with terror. Because of me.

"I know it's not modern to say so, but I come from a long line of women who cooked and cleaned and raised their young and took pride in it," she went on, oblivious to my tears. The brush was running through my hair more smoothly now. The water was cooling. "It was my job before I got my license and it's my job now. All the better that I can earn a living from it, if you don't mind me saying so. And I get to meet some real nice folks."

She patted me on the shoulder kindly and I felt myself warm to Bonnie just a little more. But I was still thinking about family. Jason had only visited me once since I returned home, and then he'd been more concerned with Niall rejecting him than he was with my injuries. He felt so distant to me now, more than I ever thought possible.

"There," she said, a pleased tone in her voice, and I felt her fingers snake through my hair. "Shall we wash this pretty hair and make it shine again?"

I raised a heavy hand to wipe my tears away and found I could nod.

She scooted me forward, filled a basin with water and washed my hair like I was a baby, cradling my head with strong fingers. I was so grateful for her gentleness with me, it was like she was washing something else out of me, too. She reminded me so much of Gran. I wondered if Eric had chosen her special for that purpose or if it had been dumb luck. I couldn't imagine Eric spending two minutes selecting a human aide for his human... whatever I was. But then, I never would have thought he'd send anyone in the first place.

When we were done, Bonnie had me stand to shower for a second and wash off the grime from my hair and then wrapped me in a towel and handed me back to sit on the edge of my bed. She wanted to know what I wanted to wear. I shrugged. Did it matter?

"Come now, dear," she said, her voice a little sharper. "The doctor is coming today, and I won't have you meeting him in that t-shirt. Now, would you be more comfortable in a night gown or would you like the whole kit and caboodle? Right. How about this gown here. It sure is lovely."

I focused on her for what seemed like the first time today. The doctor? Dr. Ludwig was coming back? I tried to think back and found I couldn't recall any appointments. Dr. Ludwig hadn't mentioned anything. Then a vague memory of a gracious, low voice in my ear, of a short conversation on the phone and it started to come back to me.

Dr. Harold Eugenides, Supernatural Psychotherapist, was making a house call today.

"Oh!" I said, finally comprehending. Suddenly, I was eager to dress, wanting to look my best, most sane self when he walked into this house. I'd never known anyone who'd had a psychologist before, except for Terry Bellefleur, the sometimes-cook at Merlotte's. He was a Vietnam vet and got therapy through the local VA. If the therapy was working, I couldn't tell. When he was having good days, he was sweet as pie. On his bad days, I steered clear. I blanched for a second. Is that where I was headed?

And then, of course, there was me. I thought back with a little reluctance to dredge up the memory. When my parents had discovered my little disability, they'd sent me to specialists of all sorts, from neurologists (try finding one of _those_ in Bon Temps, Louisiana!) to speech therapists and, finally, to a child psychologist. I'd been only about 6, and the therapist spent a lot of time trying to get me to talk to him through little clothe dolls. I never got comfortable with him. He was a compulsive gambler and didn't believe for a minute that my disability was real, and I learned that in just the first minutes of our first appointment. That opinion never did change. And when I found his mind wandering during our appointment to thoughts about my mother's breasts I threw a fit and got out of our session early. I never did see him again.

Okay, now, what would make me look stable and sane? I looked around my room and down at myself. All I really wanted to wear was my old, worn robe that reminded me of Gran (she had picked it out for me for Christmas one year, and it had little blue flowers on the piping). It made me feel safe, and having this stranger in my house certainly didn't. I clutched the robe close to me and decided I would keep it. But I put on the gown Bonnie was still holding out for me for good measure. Can't be too clothed around strangers.

Cheered my my motivation, Bonnie smiled at me and clasped her hands in front of her belly. She nodded and was off to the kitchen.

***

While I waited for Dr. Eugenides, I started to drag my brush through my hair as it dried. I felt so fresh and clean after Bonnie's long bath. I took a deep breath and could smell something frying in the kitchen. It was nice to have a purpose today. I felt almost human again. I still didn't want to think about what had happened last night to cause the stiffness and the scars, so I focused on the feel of my clean hair. It was smooth and cool against my fingers and lovely.

I was feeling almost serene when I heard the doorbell. I was about to get up and get it--prepared to meet this therapist--when I heard the brain at the door. I tensed with irritation.

Bobby Burnham.

Eric's day man--the man who thought I wasn't good enough for Eric, who thought I didn't bow and scrape enough to honor the 1000-year-old Viking. I always wondered why Bobby thought so highly of Eric. I mean, Eric sure knew how to make me feel good. Beyond good, really. Whooo boy. But his staff treated him not just like a boss but like a god. I know he's a supernatural being and has been around this earth an awful long time. But he was just Eric to me. And if there was one thing I knew after watching Eric eyefuck me all those times before we'd finally been together, it was that, at his core, Eric was just a man. A tall, delicious, hunka-hunka man who might kill you as soon as look at you, but just a man all the same.

All I got from Bobby's brain was the usual string of profanities he always directed at me. He thought I was too common for Eric, just a barmaid. He couldn't see what Eric saw in me and didn't know why Eric was wasting his time staying here. He thought I must be a pretty good lay to get Eric to leave his Shreveport home. And he didn't get why he had to drive all the way to Bon Temps to drop off a case of blood when I should be taking care of his master myself.

What a jackass.

I stood and walked carefully to the hall, looking at it for a long moment before I stepped into it and into the line of vision with the door, which Bonnie had just opened. I crossed my arms over my chest and stared at him, and he saw past Bonnie to glower at me.

"Sookie," he sneered, handing the case of blood to Bonnie, who staggered under its weight. Couldn't even carry it to the table for her. Jerk.

_Bring it_, I thought. _I'm not afraid of you._

And then I had to smile. Of all the things I was scared of in this world--and that number had grown fast lately--Bobby Burnham and his sneer still weren't one of them. At least I still had some sense.

"Bobby," I smiled and almost laughed. "To what do I owe this... uh... visit?"

"My master," he said, looking from me to Bonnie, preferring her. _Good call, Bobby,_ I thought. "He asked me to bring a case of TrueBlood from the bar and also these brochures on making one of these rooms light-tight."

Oh.

An unaccustomed feeling washed over me. Contentment, giddiness and something else, something like love. If Eric wanted to light-tight a room, maybe I hadn't scared him away last night with... whatever it was I'd done. Maybe he'd stay around for a while. I hadn't allowed myself to wonder about that too much. I could wake up with him. No more panic about him being a dream. I'd know he was real when I woke with his arm over me. I could feel safe all day. Bill had never felt comfortable doing that. But then I had a little sickening feeling. Would it be weird to wake up with my lover dead to the world?

But Bobby and his glare of true hatred snapped me out of my wanderings right quick. He looked at me like I'd been stashing Eric in a steamer trunk when Eric deserved a red carpet and a bedroom the size of my whole house.

"You take that up with Bill Compton," I snapped, answering his mind instead of his words, just to mess with him. "He's the one who put that there. And I seem to recall you didn't have a problem with that space when I was keeping your _master_ safe."

Asshole.

He screwed up his face into a glower that almost made me laugh. I held my hand out and asked him to bring me the brochures. He _so_ didn't want to come to me. But it was my house, so he'd have to and he knew I'd report his insubordination to Eric if he didn't. He hated it almost as much as he hated that Eric liked me. This was the most fun I'd had in some time... well, without Eric, anyway, I thought with a flush.

He stalked over to me and thrust the brochures at me, sucking his teeth with dissatisfaction. Then he looked at my house with disgust. Under his breath he mumbled, "Master should be in his fireproof, secure chamber, not this piece of crap."

My eyes widened and he could tell I'd heard him. Vampire blood. He looked frightened for a second and then his disdainful sneer returned.

"Nice place you got here."

I smiled sweetly. "Eric seems to like it."

That really got him. He turned all red and puffed up like an big, balding, angry rooster. He turned and stalked back to the door, calling over his shoulder that he had one more thing to bring before he had to go.

I shook my head and looked down at the brochures. I'd seen some ads for light-proofing services in the back of American Vampire Magazine, so I knew they existed. I wondered how much it would cost but mostly I imagined Eric not ever having to go anywhere. And there was a small hope I was trying to suppress, something from long ago that seemed impossible then and still seemed impossible now. Was it?

When Bobby returned, he had a rolling suitcase in one hand and a long, white robe draped over his arm. He handed the suitcase to Bonnie as if she were my maid. She was a medical professional. She didn't deserve that. And even if she had been a maid, she didn't deserve the look Bobby gave her.

"Uh, you can bring that to me," I corrected. I was so grateful for what Bonnie had done, and I didn't think for a second that she deserved to be treated like a servant. Him treating me that way, I could handle. I was used to it. I gestured to him and he reluctantly returned to me.

"I'm sure he'd like that in _our room_," I said sweetly. He choked a little and coughed into his hand. _Take that, buddy._ "But for now, you can put it in the guest room, where Eric will be rising."

It was just killing him that I had what he wanted. I had Eric. And then I could see it in his mind: He was infatuated with Eric. He was imagining Eric in just that robe and nothing else, kind of like that picture of Eric in the Vampires of Fangtasia calendar. I had to say, he underestimated Eric. He had no idea how good Eric really was. I tried to stifle my giggle but failed miserably.

He looked at me angrily and shoved the robe into my hands and stormed out.

_Bitch_, he thought as he walked out the door. _Master should have let you rot._

Bobby clicked the door shut and seemed to take all my energy with him. Before Bonnie could reach me, I had slunk onto the floor and was clutching Eric's soft, soft robe to my chest. I found myself convulsing and just like that, the numbness was gone and I was a puddle of grief in my hallway again.

****

I heard that melodious, deep voice again, and when I opened my eyes, a very tall man with shiny skin was regarding me. And by his staticky brain, I could tell he was a demon, or half demon, just like Mr. Cataliades.

"Miss Stackhouse, it is a pleasure to meet you," he said with a small, closed-mouthed smile. I blinked. Nope. He sure wasn't a dream. But he didn't look like any doctor I had ever seen.

Unlike the rolly-polly lawyer, Dr. Eugenides was all rectangles: long and thin. He looked like he'd been stretched and with his odd sheen, I had to admit he looked a little like Gumby. If Gumby had a van Dyke and mustache and a little pony tail holding his few remaining strands of hair at the nape of his neck. Kind of a hippie Gumby.

Weird. My life is so weird.

Remembering my manners, I moved to rise and greet him proper. But Dr. Eugenides wouldn't have it.

"It is very kind of you," he waved my efforts away. "It would please me if you would rest where you are. Are you quite ready for our little meet-and-greet?"

I wasn't--I was tired and raw and suddenly felt like crying. But the smile snapped into place on my lips and I nodded. After all, he'd come all this way and was trying to help me. Gran would roll over in her grave if I sent away someone who might help me get better. I thought about my vague memories of last night, about the scars on my legs, about the dead feeling I'd had this morning and found myself nodding weakly.

Pleased, Dr. Eugenides took one long stride to the chair in the corner of my room and sat. He looked like a praying mantis curling in on itself, all legs and arms, and a long, curious face. He took something from his bag--a notebook--and uncapped his pen. Oh boy. Here we go.

"Let us start with the essential elements," he said in a lilting tone and another small, closed-mouthed smile. But I could see that the smile appeared genuine and that his wide, round eyes seemed happy. "Tell me why it is you have called me. What has been happening?"

I twisted my fingers together, feeling like a child called to give a report in class. Only this report was, "All the terrible things that have happened to me." I took a deep breath and studied my hands and before I could stop myself, I was crying. I didn't want to dredge it all up. And I didn't know if I could trust this funny-looking doctor. But then I thought back to that terrible day on the floor in the hallway, to all the days of not eating and not moving, and to the terrible blankness I felt this morning, and decided I owed it to myself at least to try. If I could face down the Fellowship of the Sun, I could face down Dr. Gumby.

I took a deep breath and felt myself floating above my body, separate from what I was about to say, from what happened to me. As level as I could, I began: I told him about being beaten outside Merlotte's, about finding my Gran... in this very house... about being stalked in a graveyard by a crazed human, about almost being raped in the basement of the Fellowship of the Sun, surrounded by carnage in the witch war, watching as Alcide's father was killed in the packmaster fight in Shreveport, my house being set on fire. Being shot, being staked, being beaten, being locked in a truck with a half-mad, hungry vampire, being kidnapped. It was plain, remote, just like taking inventory at Merlotte's.

But even to me it sounded like a bad horror movie. I shook my head and chuckled.

I dared to look up at him and he was looking at me impassively, and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. His brain was nothing but white noise. And then I realized that I didn't hear Bonnie's screaming head. We were alone together.

So I'd reached the part I couldn't avoid anymore. I glanced around the room. Bedside table. The lamp Bonnie replaced. The yellow-and-white flowered curtain. Dr. Gumby's kind face. Was I really going to tell him the worst? The reason I couldn't leave the house? The reason the hallway scared me and I hadn't washed my hair in a month. My fingers went up to a lock of hair laying on my chest and stroked it. Soft. Clean. I could get better.

I looked down at my lap, covered in Gran's old quilt, the one she got for her wedding to my grandfather. Who turned out not really to be my grandfather, not in the blood sense anyway. I thought about the skin under the blanket and robe and slip I was wearing. How terrible it had looked. How much pain I'd been in just a few short days ago. My body felt heavy. My mouth wouldn't work. _I was tortured,_ I wanted to say. _I liked to have died. Sometimes I wish I had._

And then I started shaking involuntarily. I'd be happy to get a grip on my emotions anytime now, I thought just before a wave of memory hit me. And then I remembered everything that had happened last night after Eric sweetly tried to feed me dinner. He'd apologized--I didn't know what for just now--and I'd suddenly been taken back to that mildewed, rotting cave. To Thing One and Two, to their sharp teeth and their pinchers and their razors and their... Oh. Oh god.

"Oh," I said, my eyes blurring with tears. "I attacked him. Oh, lord, kicked the table. I... I ripped my shoulder! Oh no!"

I felt my knees tuck in and suddenly I was a little ball, and it felt nice to slowly rock myself, so I did. For a long while. I cried into my knees.

"I was attacked," I croaked. Oh god. _Croak, froggy. Croak. _

_As if any of them could truly be lovely._

I felt my chest shudder against my knees and then my back arch as a sound came out of me--something high and whining and hopeless. I started at a tiny flower on Gran's quilt, how the black edges of it were fading from years of use, how the blue and pink overlapped a little.

"I... The fairies. They took me," I whispered, and I couldn't care that my voice was high and sad. "I tried so hard. I had water guns with lemon juice and an iron trowel. Oh god! I killed one with it. It just... ugh. It just slid in like a hot knife into butter. Oh!"

I shivered and shivered at the memory of how it had felt. And then I remembered the stiff resistance of Lorena's body as the stake sunk into her. And all the blood. The blood from Debbie Pelt. All the scrubbing. The bleach. I was awful, a murderer. Maybe I deserved the torture.

I heard a quiet voice. "You were involved in the recent fairy war?" His voice was patient, kind. And I found I wanted to hear more of it, to open up to it.

"Y... Yes. My great-grandfather.... He's a fairy. He found me. I was so happy to meet him. I don't have much in the way of family anymore," I whispered, thinking of the water fairies, the flood, my parents. Dermott. Suddenly, I couldn't sob or cry out or even rock. The intensity of the memory flooded me and I was still. Still and colder than I can ever remember being.

"Then they did. They _hated_ me. They.... they took me. The room was dark. And there was a family staring at me, crooked. And I couldn't pass out. I wanted to. I wanted to leave my body--you know, the way they say some do. But I was just there and I saw everything. And they... They touched me and cut me. Silver-tipped teeth. They laughed. And I watched them have sex. Ugh. And then they hurt me some more. They killed so many... So many people died because of me."

My eyes were far away, looking at that little flower on the quilt.

"I called for him," I breathed, all the fight gone from me. I didn't want to say it. I didn't want to admit how hurt I was. "I thought he'd save me. I thought maybe I mattered to him, that he'd find me and kill them. Bill said he'd always be able to track me once he'd had my blood. And I called... And prayed and begged. But he never came. Never did."

A long silence, while I breathed and thought of that feeling, of needing and not having, of the minutes ticking away, and my hope with them. Of the dawning realization that I was nothing--nothing to the Things and nothing to Eric.

"And this Bill? He is your companion?"

It took a minute for me to realize the voice was talking to me. And then I was irritated.

"No, Bill is my ex," I said shortly, not wanting to dredge up all the things that made him ex. "Eric. Eric is the one I was calling."

"And Eric is your companion?"

I didn't know how to answer, and I said so. It occurred to me that after my attack last night, Eric might have left. But then why had Bobby brought his things over? With what little energy I had left, I reached my mind out and found the blank spot in the guest room. I breathed deep. Still here.

"Eric and I are blood bonded," I said, the only way I could explain our... situation. I wanted to say that Eric is a gentle lover, that he'd bathed my wounds in his blood, that he still thought I was beautiful, that I craved him. But that was too personal. I didn't know him yet. "We're pledged with the knife, but he tricked me into it."

"So Eric is vampire, then," said the soft, kind voice, a little surprised. "Do you know much about vampire nature, Miss Stackhouse?"

I was still staring at the flower, still feeling that deep emptiness. I didn't want to answer him. Didn't think it could really matter.

"They're twisty and devious," I said simply. "Secretive. Controlling. Strong. Passionate."

I heard a soft sound and looked up at Dr. Gumby. He was looking at me gently.

"That can certainly be the case," he said. "Do you know how rare it is for a vampire to share his blood with his human?"

I shrugged. It was rare enough.

"Being pledged with the knife is even rarer," he added thoughtfully. There was something soft in his dark round eyes, some happiness that made me irritable. If there was something he was trying to get at, I wished he would just spit it out.

But he changed course instead.

"So you are the part-fairy who was tortured in the fairy war. The descendant of Niall Brigant. It is very likely the executioners Lochlan and Neave used their magic to keep you coherent. You look well, considering the stories I have heard of your torture. Far more magical creatures than you have not survived their dark arts."

A vague memory floated to the surface just then. I felt the hard of the hospital bed against my back and Eric's cool mass pressing into my side. _Others hadn't survived_, he said--or something like it. _You are brave._

And then last night. _You are a warrior, Sookie. When warriors heal, they howl._ I didn't feel like a warrior just now. I felt like I wanted a second hidey-hole to curl up in, to never see anyone again.

"Tell me, have you had difficulty sleeping? Trouble with flashbacks, sudden onsets of rage? Feelings of being out of control?"

I nodded blankly.

"And your Bonded did not answer your call. That must be a heavy betrayal. Tell me, has he returned to you, offered you his blood to heal? Have you seen him since that day?"

I had seen _all_ of him since that day, but I couldn't linger there. I was stuck on the first part. A heavy betrayal. Yes. So heavy it was pinning me down even now.

When I could, I nodded again. My face tickled and I wiped the tears with the heel of my hand.

"He came back," I said, my voice thick, confused, angry. "He was at the hospital with me. Dr. Ludwig's clinic. But I sent him away. Rescinded his invitation. I... I couldn't be around him. I couldn't be around anybody. I... I hurt too much.

"But then he sent Dr. Ludwig. And he sent Bonnie. And he came back." I hated the wonder in my voice. I was shocked at my own lack of backbone. "I know should hate him. But when he's here I feel _safe_. I've been so terrified. It was like the time I spent with the fairies stretched out and out and I'd been calling him for a month. And he finally came back. He finally answered my call, and I fell apart. I begged him to stay with me--begged! I should kick him out again, but I can't bear it. I can't bear the thought of losing him."

I didn't want to keep going, but once I started, I couldn't seem to stop. "Once, he told me he'd give up his position and come live with me, get a regular job," I said, hating the wistfulness in my voice. "I was falling in love with him."

"I know I can't have him, not really--I know I'm just some pretty girl with fairy blood to him, and he'll leave once I'm stable--but I want him so bad I feel like I'm suffocating. I can only breathe when he's here."

Even to my own ears I sounded pathetic. I didn't want that to be true about me. I didn't want to need him. I didn't want to feel lost without him. I wanted to go back to just desiring him and having my own life. But as I said the words to the doctor, I knew they were true. Something had changed inside me. His sweetness these last few nights sprang to life inside me. I felt him cuddling me close to him after I'd collapsed on the floor. I remembered him bathing me, kissing me... kissing me, there. Remembered vaguely him letting me beat at him and holding me till I passed out. Kissing me softly, murmuring in his ancient tongue.

More than anything at that moment, I wanted Eric to rise and come to me and hold me, tell me I wasn't crazy. Or, I wanted to crawl into his hidey-hole with him and just lay there pressed against him, smelling him, kissing him till he rose. I laughed cruelly at myself. Eric loved Eric. He couldn't love me. I curled on my side and desperately wanted the doctor to go.

"The wounds are nearly equal," the doctor said at last. "The physical and psychological wound of the torture. And the emotional wound of abandonment by your Bonded. In both, there is an intense loss of control that marks every case of supernatural post-traumatic stress disorder. But unlike human post-traumatic stress disorder, the feeling of being weaker than your attacker is real: You are part-fae, not full-blooded, and no matter how many water guns filled with lemon juice you carried with you, the assassins Lochlan and Neave had centuries on you and magic at their disposal. You are brave, but you were outmatched, and I doubt there was much else you could have done to protect yourself. I can see these words are distressing. I'm sorry for that. I do not intend to increase your pain. My point is that it's right and sane for you to have felt out of control in a situation where another creature has magic and you do not. Think of it this way: If you are attacked by someone with a gun and you have none, it's well and good for you to sense that you may be outmatched. Fairy magic, vampire speed, Were power are like guns, but exponentially more dangerous. You should take your sense of being out of control as a sign of sanity, Miss Stackhouse, not insanity.

"It is also true that you have a keen instinct for self-preservation, Miss Stackhouse, that you were willing to call me and willing to share these dark moments with me today. I am grateful for your trust in me. I would like to begin our work together immediately, with a regimen of three sessions a week. New Orleans is quite far away. Are you able to travel?"

I looked up, frightened, and met his eyes for what seemed like the first time today. I shook my head no, and a small, scared sound came out of me.

"Ah. No matter. For the time being, we will do house calls."

He paused for a minute and then added. "Miss Stackhouse, are you familiar with post-traumatic stress disorder?"

When I shook my head, he went on patiently, authoritatively, in that voice that lulled me into calm.

"It is very common in this disorder--caused by intense shocks to the system and sometimes, as in your case, instances of extreme physical trauma--for you to feel a sense of free-floating anxiety, for sounds and smells to trigger lifelike recollections of the moment of trauma. It is very common to black out and to react with rage to the unknown or the uncontrollable. It is likewise common to attempt to control these fears by eliminating anything that might trigger such episodes: People, lovers, supes, even confining your movements to a safe place. This house, for instance. It is the nervous system's way of protecting you. But because the trauma is in your past and you are now safe, your reactions seem, for lack of a better word, crazy."

He paused until I looked at him.

"I want to assure you that they are not crazy, and neither are you, Miss Stackhouse. On the contrary, yours is a completely sane response to insane circumstances--the insanity and cruelty of others. Your body is still fighting the fight, Miss Stackhouse, and you are clearly a strong and formidable foe. Most humans would not have survived half the experiences you have and remained coherent. Your fighting spirit will serve you well in your healing. I am quite optimistic about your chances of recovery."

I was still turning over everything he'd said and thinking about laying on Eric's chest in the hidey-hole. But the pleased tone in Dr. Gumby's voice made me look up at him. I instantly wished I hadn't. I was smiling broadly now. His teeth were sharp and pointy. Just like... Oh lordy. My breathing sped up.

I must have blanched because he instantly recognized my reaction and closed his mouth, still smiling.

"Of course, Miss Stackhouse. I am sorry for alarming you."

And then he looked at his watch and put his notebook away. He produced a calendar and considered it.

"Shall we say Friday, Miss Stackhouse, for our next visit?" He said "visit" as if this weren't a medical appointment. But OK. I nodded. "And I would like to schedule it for first dark. Please invite your vampire. I believe it's important for him to know what to expect with this disorder and begin to heal the abandonment wound as soon as possible."

I stifled a smile. I couldn't imagine Eric, the Viking sheriff of Area 5, most at home with a sword in his hand, sitting on the couch with me talking to a therapist. Supernatural couples counseling. Super. But I nodded anyway.

As he stood to leave, his head just inches from the ceiling, he turned his kindly eyes on me and added, "It is quite natural to want him near, Miss Stackhouse, to want him to make up for lost time. His presence may indeed be a healing balm. Well. Until Friday then."

And he was gone. I curled to my side and for the first time realized that I had been clutching Eric's soft robe the whole time. I pulled it to my face and inhaled Eric's dry scent. I began to tingle. Eric had to be here. It was doctor's orders. I rose, gathered a few things and walked carefully to the guest room. I curled on the little twin bed there, the one that had been mine until just a year ago. I closed my eyes, ignored my rumbling stomach and waited for twilight and my vampire.


	9. Chapter 9: Deja Vu

**A/N:** Don't you think that whenever Eric walks into the room, the Pixie's song, "Gigantic" should play? I do. Anyway, this is a fun frolick of a chapter, and I hope you enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it. Thank you for all your great comments, and I look forward to more with this one. Thanks!

BTW, can any of you fan fic writers tell me if there's an easier way to make corrections to chapters than uploading and replacing whole chapters? I haven't been able to figure that out yet.

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Disclaimer: **Charlaine Harris owns Eric's ass and Sookies. I'm just playing with them. That's right. I said it.

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Chapter 9: Deja Vu**

**Eric's POV**

I rose from my daytime rest with my fangs already fully extended, biting into my lower gums and making them bleed. It was as if I hadn't risen this way for a millennium, as if this were my first first dark. My body tensed with the need to tear, rip and feed. My cock was already hard. I wanted out of this tiny hole. It smelled faintly of Bill Compton and the assassin Charles Twining.

Bill Compton. Charles Twining.

I blinked unnecessarily to rouse myself. This was Sookie's house. And just like my first first dark (I could still recollect it in its entirety), roiling human emotions ripped through me. The persistent, inconvenient guilt that I hadn't saved Sookie in time, that she was suffering because of my failure. Shame that I'd neglected my duties as her Bonded. Lust for the small, fragile warm body that was likely still curled in her bed. Or else doubled over in pain somewhere in this ramshackle farmhouse. With just that thought, my fingers curled into fists. I thought of Sookie, near dawn and inconsolable, taken by the devils of the pain she'd suffered, kicking and flailing and screaming, roaring. The first few moments, before I could lay claim to her and hold her against me, she had twisted wildly until she'd slammed her shoulder against the refrigerator and cut her legs on the ragged edge of the old kitchen table.

The grief was strong. Her grief. Memories of my mother, long forgotten, and the tribal chieftan's woman, bloody skin under their fingernails. Sookie's bloody fingernails last night as they ripped and tore at me and then herself. I could not save her from the devils in her mind, but I could hold her close to me, and I eventually pinned her arms to her side, her back full and tight against me on her bed, until she lost consciousness. I had never, in my short time observing Sookie's sleep, seen her simply lose consciousness. She had always drifted, wavered between wakefulness and sleep. But near dawn last night, my lover had continued fighting me, jerking against the heavy restraints of my arms, until I felt her body grow slack and then there was nothing. I could hear her breathing, feel her heartbeat reverberate against my chest. I knew she had not died of her pain. But I dared not let her up, nearly until dawn called me, fearing she would wake again and injure herself further. I'd had just enough time to leave instructions for Bobby.

I had laid here in this too-small space--a space designed for a man a foot shorter than me and narrower of shoulder--and my last vision was of Sookie's matted hair pressed feverishly into her neck. It was cold comfort that my blood healed the gashes she inflicted on herself almost instantly.

Now I ached to destroy. But my foe was enigmatic, only showing itself with my Bonded had a flash of something, some terror that eluded logic and that took her away. My sword could not slay it and my fangs could not kill it and I hated it. I hated it.

I sat in this hole for a long minute, willing myself to calm. Who knew what state Sookie would be in this night? She would not be healed by the erratic behavior of a powerless vampire. As I blinked up at the dusty floorboards above me, I knew my purpose this night. I would stand sentry over her until the devil had been cast out.

With my resolve firmly in place, I felt my body relax and sniffed to deduce what I would find when I rose. There was no keening wail this night. A very good sign. I caught a few scents. A human smell that wasn't Sookie's. This must be Bonita, the aide. A human scent I knew well: Bobby's. So he'd done as I requested. This was good. I was looking forward to slipping into my robe. The soft texture against my skin pleased me nearly as much as my lover's skin against mine. And another smell. Something supe. I breathed again. A demon. Why had Sookie invited a demon into her home without me there to protect her?

She was such a lot of trouble.

I breathed again, seeking Sookie's scent and was immediately rewarded with her warm bouquet. She was safe. There was no tinge of sweat on her. A lingering scent of fear and panic, but only faintly. The crisis, whatever it had been, had passed. I breathed deep. She was near. Very near.

Suddenly, I ached to be at her side, so I unfolded myself from the tiny, inferior space and popped the trapdoor. What I found was a gift from Freya.

Curled on the little bed in the room was my Bonded. She was sleeping peacefully and my robe covered her, bunched up against her mouth and nose greedily. Her face looked peaceful, no sign of last night's struggle on it. I approached and could see the light-tightening brochures scattered around her. She had come to me, two nights in a row now. She was considering making a room light-tight for me. She was bathed in my scent without me touching her.

She was mine.

I had the uncontrollable urge to wake her and claim her, so I curled in behind her on the tiny bed, nudging her over, and removed my robe from her, inspecting the healing wounds on her legs. With a smile, I wondered how her pussy was healing. I would want to study it thoroughly this evening.

I ran my palm over her side, over her arm, her breast, her belly, her hip, her leg and under her hideous stained robe. Under her gown. I pressed my face into her hair. Ah. Soft. Silky. Clean, smelling of almonds and vanilla. _Mine_. I kissed it and moved it away from her irresistible neck. I let my tongue play upon it, tickling her in the spot I knew she loved, running my fangs softly over her.

Hunger was strong in me, and a small part of my mind knew that I should drink a TrueBlood right now. But she had come to me and her body was so soft and warm. The kitchen was far away and the microwave would ding, and this moment might pass. And she had been in such a lot of pain in the past 24 hours that I refused to lose this opportunity to have my Sookie sweet and happy. She felt right pressed against me like this. And she smelled... Smelled of fairy and her own distinctive elixir. I could not tear myself away. I could only promise I wouldn't wake her with a bite. But she must wake soon.

Just then, she was leaning into me and I felt her stir.

"Hmmm," she murmured sleepily. I grew hard at the sound. "Sugar."

Only for her would I allow a human to humble me with such a name.

I felt a low growl rumble in my chest. _Mine_.

Her hand clasped mine on her belly and I felt her back into me softly. If she didn't rouse soon, I would take her hard, and I didn't want that to detract from our growing closeness.

"You have to stay," she breathed, still half asleep. "Doctor says."

"Yes." I kissed her ear. "I am here." I would ask her what she meant later. Right now I wanted to bite her, very badly. Instead, I distracted myself by indulging my other instinct. I slipped my hand down between her legs and felt her thighs slick.

"Were you dreaming of me, my lover?" I growled, pleased with her gift to me.

"I... I don't remember," she panted as my fingers parted her, slipped against her. "I was sleeping."

"Yes," I whispered in her ear, so near her tantalizing neck. "You were asleep. Asleep and dreaming of me. I am pleased." I circled my finger around her nub to show her how pleased. Her hips tilted around me in a sweet little dance. I continued it just to watch her, feel her moving against me.

"And you came to me. That pleases me as well."

I kissed and teased her neck, pressing more insistently into her with my fingers. A soft moan came from her and she craned her neck back offering herself to me. My cock hardened further. I wanted to wake her this way every night for the rest of my existence.

"And you are well this evening," I groaned against her. A shiver that echoed down her body. "Very well. And relaxed."

She was raising her knee now, offering herself to me. _Mine_, I chanted to myself. _Mine_, as I thrust my fingers into her, relishing her wetness, her openness to me.

"Quite pleased," I whispered, shuddering, feeling her squeezing against my fingers. "Precious one."

I felt her body flush, become warmer and I had to fight my instinct to bite and take some of that delicious warmth into me. She was still sick. She needed her strength.

But my Bonded had other ideas, ideas that did more than please me.

"Eric," she breathed. "Uh, yes. Now."

I growled in her ear and then I was on my back and I poised her over me. The sight of her, still sleepy, hair shining down her shoulders, face flushed, her sex tickling along my cockhead was exquisite torture. It appeared to be for her, too, because she was wiggling, writhing, a little crease between her brows, looking for friction. I would give her all, but first I wanted her like this, to see her desire for me on her face, feel it dripping onto me. In this moment, she was my Sookie, my old Sookie, before the fairies, before the tiger. She was the brave, kind woman who took me into her home and then into her bed and did not play this game of resistance. Who simply took what was hers and nearly growled with the pleasure of it. Who haltingly admitted that she was falling in love with me. I knew the path was long, but for this moment she was mine again, unabashedly.

And then neither of us could wait any longer. She groaned in frustration and held my eyes as I lowered her onto me slowly, so slowly, relishing every sound she made, relishing her natural sensuality. I groaned in relief.

When she was full with me, she sat still for a moment and I watched as her body bloomed. Blush grew and deepened on her face, her chest--what I could see of it, still covered as it was with that terrible robe and a slip underneath. Her eyes half-closed. Her fingers on my belly sending waves of heat and pleasure into my old, cold soul. I let my palms trace patterns on her spread thighs. Spread for me. _Mine_.

I traced my hands up her body as she found a rhythm that pleased her. I cupped her breasts, unable to resist them. "Perfect," I whispered.

Just then, her clothing became unbearable to me. I needed to see her moving on me, see the way her hips shifted and rolled, needed to watch her breasts bounce with her need and my insistent hips.

She will forgive me for this.

A quick motion--so fast it did nothing to interrupt the delicious rhythm building between us--her slip was two ragged pieces and her belly and breasts were open to my hungry eyes. Yes. Mine.

I reached up and pushed the fabric from her shoulders. She shivered but she didn't appear cold. She was burning to the touch. I thrust up into her, loving the way she moved with me, the way she ground into me and panted. As always, keeping up.

As it should be. As it should have been the first night she walked into my bar in that white dress with little red flowers. As it should have been when she walked past me with that foul tiger. As it should have been every day for the past month. Mine. Always, mine.

The sounds she was making seemed to confirm this.

I needed her mouth. I hugged her close and her fingers snaked into my hair and I greedily took her tongue, her lips in mine, biting, unintentionally in my fervor, into her jutting lower lip. She yelped and groaned and built her speed on me.

"Oh, Eric," she groaned into my mouth. I ate her words greedily. More. I needed more of her. I began thrusting into her with more urgency, pulling her down while keeping her waist tight to me. I nuzzled into her neck and was about to give myself over to my instincts when my lover pulled my face lower, pressing me to her breast.

It panted at me.

"Perfect," I whispered into her chest. She shivered at the cool air. "Perfect."

She held my shoulders. I caressed her breasts and held them together, licking and sucking. This is what I wanted. This right here. This tight nipple, tickling my tongue, the generosity of her breast filling my mouth, her heart beating erratically underneath. Hammering for me. Calling to me. _Mine. Mine_.

I opened my mouth wide.

"Oh!" she groaned, feeling me lick her, and she was moving faster, demanding. Yes, lover. I will give you everything. Everything I have. "Yes. Yes. Please. Bite. Eric, bite."

Before the words had left her lips her sweet blood was in my mouth. I was sucking wildly and a howl came from her that had nothing to do with the last two nights. Nothing to do with her wounds, other than the two small ones she'd just begged for.

_Mine, always mine_, I thought, thanking Freya in my first tongue. I fed hard and pressed hard into her, feeling the way she opened and pulled me into her, claiming me also. If Sookie couldn't say it with that beautiful mouth of hers, her body was telling me now: _Mine. Yours. Yes. This is right._

I didn't want it to end. But my human wouldn't wait and the taste of her blood in my mouth made it near impossible for me to hold out much longer. I slipped a hand between our bodies, placing my thumb on her nub and pressing hard. She arched away from me and my mouth and my fangs found her other breast. She made strangled sounds, loud, incoherent, and the feel of her sex tightening around me, her blood and breast in my mouth sent me over too. I hugged her close, pulled her down onto me a few more times, and released my essence into her.

I held her for a long few minutes, relishing the aftershocks that washed through her and made my body tremble. I slowly, lazily licked her breasts, closing the wounds and petting her nipples with my tongue. I caressed her back lightly in thanks. Her breathing was calming but little coos were coming from her now, approval of my ministrations. She cradled my head in her arms, holding me to her. I felt inside her in a way that was only rivaled by the feel of my blood in her veins. I rocked us lightly, unwilling to let her go.

We sat together like this for a long moment.

"Why do you feel so much like the old Eric to me tonight?" she asked quietly, when we were both still.

I took much time to think that over. "I'm not sure," I said finally, kissing the tops of her breasts. "You feel like the old Sookie to me, as well."

I nuzzled into her scent and rubbed myself on her a little more.

"Perhaps it is the familiarity of this place," I said, kissing her other breast. "Perhaps it is this odd sense of deja vu I have from when I was cursed." Cursed to find my heart's desire.

"That's it," she said, more firmly now, and leaned away from me. The nipple I had in my mouth stretched and snapped back against her full breast and my Bonded yelped. She looked at me with intense eyes. "Eric, it's like we're reliving that time. But this time I'm the one who's cursed."

I pushed the hair from her eyes and pulled her in for a kiss. "Hmmm. Interesting."

"Unfortunately, your curse cannot be lifted by finding and killing a witch," I said grimly. "If it could, I would have stalked and killed it long ago."

I tensed with rage and fought to restrain my instinct to squeeze for the pleasure of killing. _Young and human_, I chanted to myself, an incantation. She sighed into me and I could feel her tremble with the threat of tears. I did not want to add to her pain tonight so I shifted my attention. I kissed down her neck.

"Do I make you feel safe and grounded?" I asked against her throat.

She took a long time to answer, and when she did, her tone was reticent, guarded. "Yes, I think you do."

I smiled against her collarbone and licked where it met her throat. "Do you feel cared for?" I pulled back to watch the thoughts cross her face this time.

She was looking off in the distance, and then she stared at my forehead, fidgeting with my hair. I saw tenderness and grief and longing and relief pass through her dark blue eyes. "Y-yes. Very much. Thank you."

She leaned down and placed a small little kiss on my nose, and the warmth of her mouth lingered there. In all my thousand years, no one had ever dared to kiss my nose. And then smile at me.

"Are you sated?" I asked, caressing my knuckles down her breastbone and to her belly, which shivered at my touch. I smiled.

She smiled a wide, relaxed smile at me. "For now," she said and laughed.

"Indeed," I smiled at her, and she fidgeted when she saw my fangs.

I took her mouth in a long, slow kiss, arousing her and playing along her mouth with no hurry to continue our conversation. The way her mouth responded, pushed back, battled for dominance with mine pleased me. When I pulled away, finally, she was panting and I was ready for more.

I cupped her face in my hand and guided her to look at me.

"Then you know some of how I felt when you took me in off the that road and sheltered me, my lover," I concluded. I hadn't realized this would be a side benefit of caring for my Bonded. "I am quite gratified to repay the favor." I leaned in to kiss her once more.

But she tugged at my hair and I allowed her to pull me back, capturing my eyes again with hers. The pleasure on her face faded to frustration, concern, suspicion.

"That's not what this is, is it?" she said, barely able to eek out the words. "Tit for tat?"

I was flummoxed, but I could tell that our moment was now over. "I do not know this phrase. What does it mean?"

She climbed off me and the loss of her warmth left me feeling all the cooler. I watched as she shrugged back into her robe. I knew enough from dealing with Sookie that now was the time to cover the bewilderment I felt with a calm mask. She was looking intently at the sash of her robe, tying it tightly around her.

Still not looking up at me, she whispered, "Tit for tat means I do something for you, you do something for me. It's cold and calculated. A business transaction."

She paused and her hands shook. "Is that what this is to you?"

I stood and was in front of her, pulling her to me in an instant.

"Hear these words, my lover," I started, trying to maintain my patience with her willful misunderstandings of my intentions. I tilted her chin up until she met my eyes. "It is true you did something for me: Something few humans would do for a vampire as old and as powerful as I. Something few humans would do for other _humans_. You showed a kindness to me, you fought for me, you..." and I almost didn't say it because it betrayed a weakness. When I did, the words came out stiff and strangled. Sookie needed to understand what that time meant for me. "... You comforted and calmed me when I was frightened. You gave me a home. You gave me an identity. You gave me _you_."

She was exploring my face with her eyes, seemingly trying to decide if she believed me. I looked her square in the eyes and felt my jaw clinch.

"So yes. I am here now," I continued. "But I am not here to buy your silence or settle a debt. If any other being had done this for me, I would have slain them afterwards, to keep word of my weakness from spreading. Clancy argued for it. But I knew that you would never betray my confidence. Somehow, even without remembering that time, the... feelings I had for you remained and I knew I could trust you. I feel... protective of you in a way that is dangerous for my own longevity. I feel... a warmth for you I cannot explain. I simply feel you must be well."

_I missed you. I thought of you every night. I was angry. You sent me away. Again. I did not want to play your game. I did not know how sick you were. If I had, I would not have left._ I tried to communicate it with my eyes. My jaw slammed shut and I could not make myself any more weak before her than I already had.

She just looked at me for a long while, her face immobile but for her eyes, which frantically searched my face for some answer. I didn't know what more she could want from me. What more must I say for her to understand my gratitude and how that gratitude and the warmth and caring and intimacy we shared--along with some truly superior sex--grew into something more during those days, how I saw it grow in her, too. I stroked her face but she ignored it, searching me for something.

Finally, I felt compelled to ask. "Sookie, can you trust that I am telling you the truth?"

And just like that, her face crumpled and her eyes left mine and she sagged in my embrace. She buried her face in my chest and I felt the wetness of her tears hot against my skin.

"I don't know," she whispered finally. "I want to. Part of me does, I guess. But Eric... You hurt me. You weren't there for me. That's not just going to go away because you scooped me up and used your blood to heal me and we made some truly fantastic whoopee."

I had to smile at the last part, but the rest left me clinched and ready to break something old and sturdy. By the gods, this house would not survive my stay if Sookie could not forgive me. When would this stubborn human yield to me?

I buried my face in her hair and inhaled her scent, taking as much as I could get. If she rescinded my invitation now, I didn't want to go without as much of her scent on me as possible. I didn't want to go back to that terrible night, to her disappointment in me.

"You're killing me," I whispered. "You're killing me."

Despite myself, I felt a bloody tear trickle down my cheek.

"Eric?"

I kissed her head and I could feel her pulling away from me as well as I knew the pull of dawn. "Yes, my lover."

"I guess you mean well, but they _really did_ almost kill me," she said into my chest. Her words echoed there and I wished they didn't. I could feel her trying to restrain her anger. The fact that she wasn't screaming seemed like progress somehow. "I don't like it when you saying _I'm_ killing _you_."

I stood perfectly still, taking in her words. As much as it pained me to admit it, even to myself, she had a point. I would choose to meet the sun if I lost her. But she hadn't had a choice with the fairies, and she very nearly had died. I wanted to argue that my blood and my strategy had saved her, but I sensed such a statement now would lead to a larger fight, and I wasn't willing to forfeit her soft embrace.

Dr. Ludwig had been right also. Without our magic, humans didn't recover as quickly as we did from supernatural skirmishes. They were fragile. This life wears on them. A truly bizarre thought struck me: I wondered if I was really helping her by staying with her. Perhaps she would be better off without me. Another unfamiliar feeling: despair. I pushed hard, but I couldn't force the thoughts out of my brain.

But no, that couldn't be right. I willed myself to think hard and then I realized: It was irrelevant. She was mine. She was an asset to Felipe de Castro, and without our bond and being pledged with the knife, she would be the king's pet in the royal residence in Las Vegas right now. And, lest I forget, my Sookie is a warrior--far heartier than most humans. Tough for a young mortal. Perhaps I would teach her to wield a sword. I bet she'd be sexy with the blade in her hand.

And just like that, my bad mood passed. I sighed, relieved to be back to myself.

"I will not say it again," I said simply, kissing her hair. There. That should please her.

"And you will trust me in time," I added, meaning it. I would make it so if I had to sleep in that tiny cupboard for the next 100 years. Then I lowered my mouth and voice to growl in her ear. "But know the truth. The only tits in this room are yours, and they are magnificent. The best I have seen in a millennium."

This had the intended effect. Sookie chuckled and pushed against me, breaking our embrace anyway. She shook her head, exasperated. "You're too much," she said. "You can't just compliment my bosoms and expect me to let this go."

I stepped toward her, irritable now. "Sookie. Do you really think I would come all this way, bring my things, consider building a light-tight room just to settle a score? I paid you $20,000 more than the agreed price for your help when I was cursed. You know I do not waste time humoring humans, don't consider most worthy of my attentions. I am here because I choose to be. I am here because you are here and you are important. _You_."

She crossed her arms under her glorious breasts and cocked a hip, considering whether to accept my explanation. Her eyes roamed around the room, from the rumpled bed to the brochures to my suitcase and robe. She glanced up at me through her hair, and I could see that she wanted to stay mad--that her pride had been ruffled--but something was preventing it. A softness drifted across her eyes and she moved toward me, huddling into my arms.

"I'm sorry," she said, and I chuckled because the words sounded as stiff coming from her lips as they did from mine. Dr. Eugenides said I have an 'abandonment wound' in addition to SPTSD. He said it's normal for me to be angry and to... need you.... right now."

I looked down at her. My Bonded admitted to needing me. I had to smile, but it was just a twitch, because I knew Sookie would not appreciate the happiness this gave me.

"This is the demon I smell in the house?"

Sookie nodded. "You'll stay, right?" she added suddenly. "You won't leave anytime soon?"

Ah. I wouldn't tell her just now how much it pleased me that she wanted me to stay after she sent me away. But I might show her. I leaned down and nuzzled her neck.

"I will stay," I whispered into her ear. She shivered and I felt her smile into my chest. Very good.

I gathered her up in my arms, slinging her legs over one arm, intending to bring her to her own bed when I heard her stomach growl. That reminded me. TrueBlood. Perhaps two or three. I'd fed from her, but my desire was not quenched. I would need more.

"Shall I feed you, my lover?" I leaned down, bringing my face on level with hers. She smiled a small, unsure smile at me and nodded.

I leaned down and picked up my robe and carried them both into the kitchen.

***

We were settled into seats in the kitchen. Sookie had a plate of crispy brown food, white lumpy food and oily green produce. I with two Bloods, one already drained. We spoke of Sookie's day. It seems it was an eventful one--and I was cheered that she seemed to have had the stamina for it. She glowed softly when she spoke of Bonnie's skill at caring for her this morning. I ran my fingers through her hair appreciatively. I would not tell her I had been looking forward to washing it myself this night.

She told me more about her demon therapist. She said he had the appearance of some kind if child's toy, and promised to show me a figurine of it shortly. I thought it odd that she would have a specialist who reminded her of a doll, but then, Sookie's human associations often befuddled me. She grew quiet and began leaking briefly when describing that she'd had to reveal her past to the strange doctor.

"Hearing myself say it, I could hardly believe I'd lived through it all," she said, thoughtfully chewing her food. "I mean, when you put it all together, it really is like I've been through a war. War after war."

I leaned in and clasped her hand in mine. I kissed her tears, enjoying their flavor.

"My little warrior." _My magnificent, heroic warrior. _I flashed on the image, fuzzy as it was with my daytime rest, of her pulling me, covering me and pushing us out the window at the hotel in Rhodes. She'd come to save Pam and I specifically, out of all the creatures in that hotel. She was loyal and brave. I might have been finally dead without her.

She looked up at me and attempted a smile.

"He told me I was a fighter, too," she said softly. "He said it would help me get better, if I was a fighter. He said I shouldn't be embarrassed about all the collapsing I've been doing lately. He said it was a sane reaction to an insane situation, and that my body was still fighting... them."

A kind of relief passed across her beautiful face, which was looking rosier and fuller by the day.

"He said I have a real good chance of getting better."

My mouth twitched. I would not show her I had any doubts, but the words cheered me more than I could have imagined. She would not be Ignatius. She would not grow more weary. She would not claw herself and climb on the pyre. She would be strong and vital.

"I have no doubt," I said, kissing her other cheek. "You will be magnificent again."

It was news to celebrate. I should drink my Blood, but all I wanted was Sookie's warmth in my mouth, however I could get it.

I pulled her onto me and sighed when she straddled me. My hands found her bottom and kneaded, cherishing the small moans that came from her. Her hands snaked around my back and clutched me to her using the lapel of my robe.

"This is... so soft, Eric," she panted, petting the material. "I've never felt anything like it."

I pressed her into my hardness and groaned with contact.

"You've never felt cashmere, Sookie?" She shook her head as she rose to rub her center against me and I leaned back in my seat, welcoming her gyrations. Blood bond or not, I could feel her lust rolling off her in waves.

"Do you like it?" I asked and tilted my hips as she rubbed along me, grinding us close.

"Ahh, yes," she hissed and bent down to nip my neck. I groaned.

_Then you shall have it,_ I thought.

She was making small sounds and just as I was about to reach between us and guide myself into her wetness, she pulled back.

"Wait, Eric, wait," she panted. I pressed her into my firmness and she moaned. She did not want to wait.

"Eric!" But it was admonishing.

"What is it, my lover?" I was untying the sash of her old robe and petting her belly.

"I.... Oh god. I have to ask you something."

"What do you desire, my lover?"

"I desire... Oh Lordy, Eric. You know what I desire," and she leaned in to offer me her neck. Dangerous and full of adventure, this one.

"You need your strength," I said hoarsely. I thanked the gods that I was 1,000 years old and did not need much human blood to survive or she would be splayed across this table right now and my fangs would be in her, so near her wet folds. The thought made my hands itch.

"Mmm, oh," she sighed, rubbing herself on me. I reached down and petted her nub and she purred. _Mine. Mine. Mine._ I kissed her neck.

"What do you want to talk about, my lover?" I asked, toying with her, enjoying her passion. I chuckled softly, watching her writhe. _So alive,_ I thought in wonder. _So alive and warm and wanting me._

"I.. Oh!" she gasped as I finally slipped myself into her. I groaned.

"My warrior," I whispered to her in my native tongue. "My strong, sensual warrior. Thank you for saving me."

She was moving herself quickly on me, and I knew what I wanted more than anything. I grabbed a knife off the table and put it to my throat. With a quick motion, I sliced and pressed her face into me. I felt her tug at the wound and suck. Her tongue lightly traced its edges, capturing every drop. It was as if she were pulling me out of myself, as if every tug of her lips had a direct line to my hardness moving inside her. To be so surrounded in her scent, to be inside her wet pussy and her mouth at once made me swell and thrust harder and I heard myself growl with satisfaction as I released into her.

_I am in you now. You are MINE._

I held her close, thrusting slowly into her, feeling her muscles contract around me, pull me tighter into her, relished the cooing and sobbing coming from her hot form.

I kissed her face and her hair and her eyes and her soft, panting lips.

"_My_ lover," I whispered to her. "My Bonded."

I felt her tense a little at that, though her center was still softly contracting.

When she could breath, she whispered in my ear. "Eric," she said hoarsely, still panting. I loved the sound. "The doctor wants you to come to my appointment with me Friday. At first dark. Will you come?"

I nodded into the sweet scent of her neck. If she needed me, I would be there. I would be there and learn whatever I needed to to hold sentry and protect my beloved.

"Thank you, baby," she said and relaxed against me, rubbing her scent across me. "I'm surprised. I thought you might be a little put off by couples counseling."

Before I could wonder what this couples counseling was, my Bonded kissed me again. Dishes clattered to the floor and my TrueBlood spilled. My Bonded thighs spread and I spent the next few hours checking her diligently, minutely to insure that she was healing. She was much, much better than yesterday.


	10. Chapter 10: The Dead Thing

**A/N: **This one was a hard one to get out. All I want to do is write about the couples counseling (there's so much to say and it's going to be so fun!) but I felt like I needed to do something else first. Hope you enjoy it, and please hit the green button and comment!

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Disclaimer:** These characters belong to Charlaine Harris, except for Bonnie and Dr. Gumby. (love that!)

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**Chapter 10: The Dead Thing  
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**Sookie's POV**

Trees, normal. Kitchen door, shiny with new paint, glowing with the promise of safety. Hands on steering wheel, rough, wet with sweat. Purse. Feel: water guns, trowel. OK. Yard, ordinary. Regular. Chill of wind through the car. Smell of old cigarettes and greasy fast food wrappers. Metallic taste, back of throat.

Yard.

Door.

Purse.

Window. Amelia's face, eyes wide, mouth set.

Rearview mirror. Bill will be here soon. Deep breath.

Door.

Hands.

Door.

Car door.

Hand reaching for it.

Deep breath.

Blood pumping. Breathing fast.

Car door. Door. _Fairypants_.

Hand reaching, purse on shoulder. Deep breath.

Door. Stairs. Three bounds if I'm fast.

Yard, ordinary. Security light. Amelia's face.

OK.

_Fairypants._

OK.

Hands. Steering wheel. Breath.

Open. Crunch of gravel. Other foot, down. Slam door. Blood pumping, pumping. _Run! Now!_

One step, gravel, _faster_!

Two steps, gravel, _almost_! Heart pounding.

Foot, ricocheting up, ready for next step. Stairs, so close. _Fairypants_!

Rustle. Behind me. Mumble. Who?

_Mumble?_ Stairs.

Almost there.

Almost....

Blackness. Blankness.

Nothingness.

I gulped in air, my chest burning and throbbing, my pulse pounding at my temples. My fingers tore at my clothing, trying to get anything on me away from me, trying to get free. I sobbed and fell over. My throat couldn't make a sound but I was doing my level best to scream at the top of my lungs. A cold dread shot through me and I knew--just knew--that I was in that cave. I felt cold and damp on my skin. I couldn't open my eyes. I couldn't face it.

I lay shivering, waiting for it all to begin, waiting to hear the the lilting, cruel, inhumane voice of Thing One welcoming me to the party. But all I heard was birds.

_Birds_? There were no birds in the cave.

I forced my eyes open just a touch and they came into focus on on a flowered quilt. And it was light out. My head felt fuzzy, heavy. I must have been bopped on the head again. Oh, oh no. Could it be a trick? No, no. That doesn't make sense.

I tried to suck down the air a little more slowly. My head turned. Nightstand. Clock radio. Lamp.

OK.

Curtains. Sun streaming through. Chair.

I looked down at my hands and saw that they were not tied. I rotated my wrists just to make sure.

OK. OK. I took a deep breath. Then another. Then another. I tried to relax my shoulders.

OK. I'm OK.

Then a dawning familiarity struck and something terrible broke open in me again. I let out a deep sigh and collapsed back on the pillow. Lordy.

I could stop having these nightmares anytime now and that would be just fine.

I laid there for a long while, slumped on my side until my shoulder started aching. I listened to the birds with the small part of my brain that could concentrate, just to remember that I was home and safe and not in that cave. And not in that terrible, terrible dream anymore. In my gut I longed for Eric's reassuring arm around me, even if he were dead during daylight. Just feeling him close would calm me. I knew it. I didn't know why and I felt ridiculous depending on Eric of all people, but still... I knew it.

As it was, all I felt was a cold aloneness, a sickening powerlessness that made me angry. The same images, the same adrenaline, the same hope, the same terrible mumbling and the same panicked, startled wakefulness. Over and over. I could taste the bile on the back of my throat. I wanted to reach out, climb in with Eric till twilight. I was so close to safety and I couldn't grasp it--not in the dream and not now. It was hiding in the floor of the closet in the guest room. I curled in on myself some more and even though I was tense, it was like I couldn't feel my muscles. I felt like I didn't have a body.

And then I felt so angry that I my energy surged and I liked to have thrown myself against the wall, found some way to bruise myself right back up again.

_It had been my own fault. _

There was no excuse for me just glancing at the trees and not examining carefully for fairy attackers that day. I'd been attacked often enough. I should have known better. I should have looked. I should have studied. I should have let Bill ride with me. He's a vampire. He could run home faster than he could drive. Why had I been so stupid? _I could have saved myself_, I thought angrily. _None of this would have happened if I'd been smart._

_Stupid_. _Worthless_. _Deserved what I got._

The thoughts just melted into me, melding with my bones and becoming, again, part of who I was now. I found myself squeezing my hands so tight that the nails were biting into my palm and grinding my teeth so hard they would crack. My body trembled with the effort of trying to hold in all this rage and shame and regret. And powerlessness. Deep, to my bones powerlessness. I didn't want to feel this way, to think this of myself. I'd always been so good about not dwelling on those awful times I'd had. But something about this time changed me. It was as I knew it'd be when I was in Dr. Ludwig's clinic: I would never be the same. Eric may have healed my body. I stretched and let myself enjoy the fact that I could now move without pain. No small luxury in my book. But my mind, my heart, they'd been beaten and cut and destroyed by this, too. Dr. Gumby thought I could heal, and that was something. But it didn't feel like near enough.

I lay there clinching and listening to the birds and feeling the tears on my face till my body became heavy. Every part of me wanted to sleep, but my nerves and my senses wouldn't allow it. That dream was just on the inside of my eyelids, waiting to be replayed. It had happened often enough over the past month that I knew it wasn't an idle threat.

So I did what my body would hate. I sat up. I swung my legs over the the side of the bed and slid into my slippers. I shuffled to the bathroom and I closed the door. I used the toilet and then I brushed my teeth and then I took a quick shower and then I went back to bed. That's when I noticed the only thing I'd been wearing all night was Eric's soft robe. It was so soft I snuggled back into it, too tired to think about how I got into it in the first place.

So tired that my bones ached.

I grabbed the first magazine on my dresser. A gossip magazine. Perfect. I couldn't read anything with a plot right now anyway. Short. Pictures. That dress is lovely. Oh my. She shouldn't wear that color. Or that style. And she should put her bosoms away.

I wonder if they're even dating. I always wonder how much of what I see in those magazines is made up by the movie companies and how much is real. Who knew?

These poor people look stricken! That look on their face, like these photographers are making their lives miserable, like they're stalking them. I found myself unable to tear away from those eyes, from the irritation and panic and weariness of them.

Was I imagining it? Could I really see the panic?

My chest burned and got heavy. I knew that feeling. I'd avoided the mirror well enough in the past month, but today, I knew the look in their eyes from the inside out. My breath caught in my throat and a strangled gasp came out of me. Just like that, the magazine fell from my hands and I scooted down in bed again. I gasped and cried and then put my own foot down.

Nope. _You are a warrior._ At least Eric and Dr. Gumby thought so.

I stretched and my muscles groaned with weariness. I could slip back to sleep right now. I could be asleep and healing. But that dream... that gravel... I couldn't go back. Time to change the subject.

I never wanted to be turned, but right now I sure wished I could sleep like a vampire--not have any choice about it, just fall out at the rising sun and not move until it set again. And no chance of dreams.

I closed my eyes, because I couldn't fight it. I tried to think of nice things. Calming things. My old cat Tina rubbing herself up against my leg. Purring. The feel of her fur in my hand. So silky and soft. Maybe I'd get another cat.

How it felt to have Tina's little warm body curled up on me, heavy, purring. I took a deep breath, but before I could relax, I could see her blood.

I convulsed with crying again. My body felt sore and like my head wasn't connected to my body. Floating, drifting. What I wouldn't give to bring it back down to earth right now.

I hugged the robe closer to my body. OK, think about something else.

And then I thought of the one thing that always seemed to make me feel better. I sniffed Eric's robe and ran my hands around it. Bless him for bringing some joy to my dark, sad nights. I closed my eyes and imagined him curled up with me right now, in a dark room. His arm over me, heavy. The feel of him at my back. Protective.

I thought about last night. What a relief it had been after such a long and trying day, to wake to Eric slipping up behind me, just like in my dream. And he hadn't stopped. He'd taken me over and over again. In my childhood bed, I thought with a blush. On the chair in the kitchen. On top of the kitchen table. Oh my. I still felt sometimes like road kill, but it does amazing things to a girl's self-confidence to have a 6'5" Viking vampire unable to keep his hands off you.

I could feel--really feel--even now, his tongue on me, parting my wet lips, seeking my nub. Murmuring how well healed I was even from yesterday. He'd made me look--his thing, also a little of a healing thing. To see my lady bits shiny and pink instead of damaged and peeling was amazing. Eric really did do my body good. Over and over again.

I remembered his big, strong hand making quick work of untying the sash to my old robe. I could feel him cupping my breast and groaning. I shivered and my breath caught. _Yes, Eric,_ I pleaded silently. _Make me feel better. Give me some peace._

His eyes appeared before me, so beautiful and tender and craving. I felt lost in them, trusting them to be honest.

I ran my fingers along my neck and could feel him nuzzling there, dragging his fangs across but not breaking my skin. I arched my back and turned my head and offered myself to him. Anything to keep him with me a little longer.

_Beautiful_, he had said. _Perfect_. I felt tears sting my eyes. How could he mean it? How could he have ever meant it, given the number of women he'd been with in his long, long life? But he'd said it, and I clung to it, and a tiny hope slithered out from my exhausted, dark soul and told me that he'd looked and sounded like he'd meant it.

I felt my thighs press themselves open to my hand, remembering how Eric's big palms had pressed coolly there, asking for me to let him in. I'd done it. I would do it again. Over and over. My Eric. Yes. I moaned softly in the sunny room. His thick fingers teasing around me until they finally dipped in, pressing lightly and then more insistently, making me sob and groan and ask him for more. The feel of his soft hair in my palm. Stroking as he stroked me. His big mouth, strong lips, teasing, tickling, insisting... claiming. Demanding all of me. His fingers reaching inside me, curling.

I felt my chest blush even at the memory, at how enthralled I was with him, how I wanted him to have all of me, how I'd given all, spread myself out for him, begged him not to stop, meaning, Never stop. Stay. Forever. Please.

_I will stay_, he'd said. _I am here because I choose to be. I am here because you are here and you are important. You. _

He hadn't stopped and I hadn't either and the sounds he had made, the satisfied but hungry sounds, the ecstatic sounds as he slurped at me, swishing into me at greater speed, demanding I give him everything, asking for it. I didn't want to hold back anymore. I arched my hips, then and now. Oh. Oh god.

Eric! Yes, Eric. Ohhhh. Pressing, pressing, sucking, biting, muttering how beautiful I was, how healed I was, how brave I was. Me impaled on his hand and his mouth, not caring that the kitchen table was cool against my back, not caring that the curtains were open. Not feeling anything but his mouth and the sweat beading up on me.

Please, Eric. Yes.

Ahh.

Ahh. Ahh. Yes.

Oh!

Eric. There. Right. Right. There....

And then him calling me, asking me to look, as, just on the edge, he nuzzled his beautiful wet mouth into the crook of my legs. His fangs glinting in the light. Want. More. Give me, I'd thought, when I could think, my head foggy in the best possible way. And then his fingers hit right and his fangs clamped down and I was flying, calling him, praising him as I had good moment after good moment.

Oh. Yes.

Now.

Ah. Ah. Oh!

I shuddered and sighed in my small, good moment, my body finally, mercifully relaxing into the sheets. As my breathing slowed, I became aware of my environment again. Not the kitchen table. (I throbbed.) Clean, sunny. Safe and ordinary day. My nipples felt wonderful against the cashmere of his robe. I leaned into it and smelled him and laughed silently. It felt like I'd located that jar where I stored all those extra orgasms he'd given me and taken one out.

I closed my eyes and let myself believe, for a few minutes, that he Eric who'd risen last night wasn't the Vampire Sheriff of Area 5--not the Eric who'd tricked me into sucking a bullet out of his chest and then tricked me into blood bonding with him in Rhodes, and then tricked me into a vampire marriage with him in front of Victor Madden of all beings. That he wasn't even _my_ Eric, the Eric who didn't know any better and was scared and therefore trusted me and gave himself to me without reservation. That, maybe, he really was a new Eric I'd never met, an Eric who had all his senses, his whole personality, including his self-interest, and wanted me anyway. Just me. That he had come to me because he still loved me. Or almost loved me. Or at least cared for me. And wouldn't leave me again.

With that pleasant fantasy clouding my mind, I finally succumbed to my exhaustion and fell hard back into sleep.

*****

I woke groggy and irritable. There was something at the back of my mind. Something I couldn't hold on to but that was nagging at me. Something dreadful I thought I might not want to remember. Something about this day--I didn't know what it was--was setting my teeth on edge and I just wanted to get through it.

I could hear Bonnie in the other room thinking about her grocery list and her cooking and her important weekend plans, and worrying if I'd be OK on the weekend by myself.

The thought of a weekend all to myself did nothing to calm me. I was getting ready to sink into a pity party, wondering how I could feel so bad when my last thoughts before sleep had been so good, but then Bonnie was in my room with breakfast and a quiet, professional smile.

I slapped on my nervous smile.

"You look rosy this morning," she said, chipper. I hated chipper today, and wasn't sure why. "Sleep well?"

I didn't want to tell her that Eric had kept me up all night and a terrible nightmare had woken me this morning at 7 a.m., that her being here and being cheery wasn't helping and I didn't know why. But I breathed deep and smoothed the sheet over me politely. Gran would hate it if I were rude to Bonnie, so I smiled my wide, fake smile and composed myself.

"Well, aren't you sweet?" I said, and there may have been a bit more venom in my voice than I'd intended. Bonnie didn't register my tone in her voice, though. "I'm glad I look good because I sure feel like five miles of rough road right now."

She looked at me curiously as she handed me a plate of biscuits and gravy. It smelled so good that my irritation was momentarily side tracked and my smile turned a little more genuine. I looked up at her to thank her as I scooped a big dollop of gravy and bacon onto my biscuit and wolfed it down. I hadn't realized I was so hungry.

But my unease was strong and I watched her wearily. Her eyes were watching me, appraising. It's the look Dr. Ludwig gave me a few days ago when she could tell I wasn't well.

"How's that dear?"

She sure seemed nosy this morning, I thought grouchily as I finished the second biscuit, licking my fingers. But I could hear Gran telling me to let doctors--and in this cases aides--do their jobs. So I explained my nightmare and my fear of sleep in the loosest terms. No reason to make it harder on myself just to satisfy her curiosity.

She nodded and said she knew just the thing. Perky. I shook my head as she walked purposefully from the room. I may have stuck my tongue out at her just before I took in another gravy-soaked bite. She came back with a Xanax tab and set me up to go back to sleep. Then she left me alone and I did my level best to block out her thoughts.

I picked up a magazine and glanced through it, but that nagging irritation wouldn't leave me. I was full but something about me couldn't get satisfied. I couldn't look at the magazine for more than a few minutes before some thoughts started bubbling to the surface.

You can't count on him. He's gonna leave you as soon as you're well. And then where will you be.

And then, damningly:

Remember his track record.

And there it was: The thing I'd been avoiding. I felt myself starting to break apart again and I wondered why the Xanax wasn't helping. Or maybe it was, I thought with horror. But those were just fleeting, and I found myself right back in that awful cave. And suddenly, it was like I could feel that Trey was there, slumped in the corner and about dead. And I knew it was my job to save him and save myself and the only way I could do that was through this stupid blood bond I'd never wanted. Rage started popping up to the surface.

I hadn't had control of my feelings when it came to Eric for months now. I always felt squishy and warm and safe when he was around, even when I was mad at him. I was drawn to him, and every part of my body longed for him. And yet he'd stayed at a distance for months before the fairy war.

And then... I sighed. No! I don't want to go through that again. I won't dredge it up, I told myself. But there was something in me that forced it, that was holding me down and making me look and I fought against it in my own way. I squeezed my eyes shut and curled into a ball.

But all that did was give me a better view of the cave. I felt myself propped up as the Things played with me, biting, seeing what would make me yelp and sob the loudest. I could hear them, their cackles. My stomach clinched and rolled and suddenly those biscuits seemed like a real bad idea.

A cold hole burrowed itself into my back. I couldn't get my prayers out of my head.

_Eric, if you're there, I need you. Please! Come save me. I don't know where I am. There's an old photo of a family on the wall, and it smells like mold and decay here. You can follow my feelings. I know you can. Please say you can. Please. _

_Come get me, baby. Make it up to me for lying to me and tricking me. _

_If... If you love me, save me. Please. _

_Ow! Oh god. _

_Please. I need you so bad. Please. Oh god, the teeth! Searing... pain. I'm not gonna survive this if... if you don't get here soon. _

_I need you. _

_I need you. _

_If you come to me now, I swear, I'll stop fighting the bond, I'll be your forever. I'll forget everything. I'll owe you everything. Please. _

_Please. _

_Help. Please. _

_Help._

And then a hardness had settled over me, as it did even now. My pleas died down. I was going to die in that dank room and the Things would laugh and probably celebrate by fucking on top of my mutilated body.

Laying here now, cold and hopeless, I felt the truth for maybe the first time: Something had died in me that day, and that dead thing was still in me. Rotting me, ruining me. It had torn a hole in me and I was helpless to fill it. I couldn't imagine there was enough love and caring in the world to put me back to rights.

When Eric was here, in my arms, holding me and whispering to me in his ancient language, it felt a little less cold and empty. Letting him touch me and stroke me and say sweet things to me helped. But the dead thing was so big, so unquenchable, I despaired that it could ever be healed by anything.

I didn't know if anything Eric could say or do would matter now. I was torn open, and no amount of his blood could sew me shut again.

How could I trust him? How could he expect me to?

And to say last night that he was repaying a favor... What a jerk. Sure, he'd said it tenderly. And sure he'd backed it up with some truly unbelievable--from Eric--statements. But he'd said it, and he'd looked so smug. And I just wanted to punch in my the face.

And then kiss him. And punch him again. My fists ached and my eyes blurred with tears.

But then the wave of rage was chased away by a wave of confusion. How could a body hold so many feelings? And how could I have so many at once, about the same person, with such wildly different results?

I didn't want that to distrust him so much, I thought as I sobbed. You should never treat any act of kindness as your due. I knew that. And Eric--he was being so kind. Beyond kind. He seemed genuine when he said he was here for me, that other humans didn't matter to him but I did. That sure sounded like him. I remembered the look in his eyes when he talked about how I'd cared for him when he was cursed. Maybe it was the dead thing, but I couldn't let that in, not really. Not because he'd cuddled me and made love to me and looked at me with those eyes for three days. Not because he'd bathed me in his blood. I had a vague sense that I was crazy, but I couldn't help it.

I tried not to sob too loudly. I didn't want to attract Bonnie's attention. I didn't think I could stand it if she found me like this. I certainly couldn't explain it.

He'd been so tender last night, like he really wanted _me_, like he couldn't get enough of me, as damaged as I was. It was like I'd never been telepathic, like he'd never cared about my disability or what I could do for him. That he only... loved me. Or something like it, I thought quickly. I'd remembered it today, _felt_ it inside me, all over me. I hoped that could be enough. And he had come, eventually. He'd answered my call. That was something. That should count. But somehow, it was like the dead thing inside of me wouldn't let it, killing his kindness before it could reach me. I concentrated as hard as I could in my addled state, but I couldn't make myself forgive him.

I stroked his robe some more. So soft. Cashmere. I'd said I liked it and he'd given it to me for the day. I'm sure he also wanted me thinking of him and wanting him, hoping I'd be hot to trot by the time he rose. Boy, was he in for a shock, I thought sadly.

I knew what I probably should want to do: I should want to kick him out, pay for Bonnie out of my dwindling savings and let Sam come over and watch over me at night. Then I could go back to work at Merlotte's when I was finally better. I certainly shouldn't be looking around my room wondering how hard it would be to make it light-tight.

But to my bones I just hoped he'd stay. I knew it was probably just the blood bond. I knew I didn't have a right to ask it. I knew my feelings and thoughts and instincts were all over the place right now. I wished I could just decide to either kick him out or just give in to this wonderful feeling of safety and warmth I had when he was near. But instead, I was left part dead, part needing and part betrayed. As terrible as I felt even with him here, I remembered how awful it had been when I'd been all alone. It was like I told Dr. Eugenides: It really is like I can't breathe when he's not here. But it's also like I'm drowning when he is.

Still, even a little--even a half-healed dead thing--was better than being cold and gaping and lost.

My head felt ragged, raw. I didn't want to think about this anymore. But I couldn't hold it off. I realized suddenly that every muscle in my body was curled and tensed. I was shaking, wanting the day to be over, wanting the pain to be gone. Wanting oblivion.

I just wanted to disappear. _I just want to disappear._ I repeated it to myself as if it could help. _I just want to disappear._

I repeated it until I finally, fitfully, fell back to sleep.

***

"Ooh, Sookie, look!" I heard Bonnie's voice from far away. And then her brain:_ I love this store... so fancy... I bet it's awful pretty.... he sure does seem sweet on her... he's so big and strong and those muscles!... lucky girl..._ "A package!"

Ugh. I sat up with effort and my head was splitting with pain and my eyes felt all puffy and raw. I focused on the fancy-looking box in front of me. I moaned, half to myself and closed my eyes again. I knew immediately what it was. I had known the moment he'd ripped my slip with such glee--my best slip, the sexy one--that I'd be getting a package today. I was in no mood for Eric's sweetness right now. I didn't deserve it. I couldn't return it. But at least my impulse to throw it across the room or yell at Bonnie for waking me was turned down. God bless Xanax.

Bonnie was looking down at me excitedly and she nudged me to get me to open my eyes.

"Open it!"

She was so giddy. I wanted to slap her smile off her face, but of course I wouldn't.

I smiled weakly up at her. Well, if I couldn't make myself happy, someone in this house ought to be. So I stared at it and my nervous smile stuck itself to my face. Resigned, I lifted the top and folded back the rose-colored tissue paper.

Inside was the most beautiful slip I'd ever seen. It was deep burgundy, almost a wine color, and it was so shiny and soft. I held it up. It had pleated sheer inserts on the cups and a frilly, ruffled him of the same sheer material. A very short hemline. Eric.

Inside was a note, on that same heavy, cream paper and in Eric's smooth handwriting.

_Dear Heart,_

_Please accept this negligee as recompense for my harsh treatment of your slip last evening. I will not pretend that I did not enjoy it--you know me too well for that--but I know your things are precious to you and I will not have you going without. _

_I would be honored if you would wear it at first dark._

_Eric_

Before I got to Eric's name, the letters started blurring and I realized I was crying. Again. _Crap_. He'd be expecting a sex kitten tonight and I was a mess. I sniffed and brought my hand up to wipe the snot from my nose. I didn't deserve this. I couldn't forgive him. And he had no idea. But how do you say that to someone? _Please don't leave but I can't forgive you, either?_

I ran my fingers over the satin. It was so pretty, just the most beautiful... what did he call it? Negligee?... I had ever seen. (That word hadn't come up on my word-of-the-day calendar yet. Neither had "recompense," but I got his meaning.) It was so fine and delicate. You'd never find a thing like this at Walmart or even Tara's Togs. I held it to me and suddenly, irrationally, and more than anything, I wanted him laying here next to me so I could kiss his beautiful face.

"My, Sookie, that sure is something," said Bonnie approvingly. I had forgotten she was there and I glanced up at her, embarrassed of the water works.

That could stop anytime now, too.

But when she caught my eye, I saw her look soften and change. Oh no. Pity. But then her look hardened and she became professional again.

"A very hard day today, I see," she said, stroking the hair back from my face in a gesture that would have done Gran proud.

I nodded and shrugged, keeping my eyes on the slip.

She nodded as if she understood. For all I knew, she did. She'd worked with supes and their humans a long time.

I peaked a look at the tag. One hundred percent silk. I hope it doesn't have to be dry cleaned. Do rich people dry clean their underthings?

And then other, more confusing questions bubbled to the top of my fried brain. Would I wear it tonight? Was I up to it?

I didn't know. I clutched it to me and closed my eyes.

I'd think about that later.


	11. Chapter 11: The Choice

**A/N:** I had so much fun with this one--and we're not even to the couple's counseling yet. I didn't expect the turn this chapter took, and it's a little longer than usual, so plan accordingly.

This chapter is brought to you by Sookie's Word-A-Day calendar. To that end, here are two vocabulary words for you:

_Berserker:_ An ancient Norse warrior who fought in a wild frenzy, as if in a trance, often with the power of more than one man.

_Effulgence:_ Shining brightly, radiant.

There's also an endnote on here because I don't want to ruin the surprise by telling you something up front. Enjoy, and please comment!

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Disclaimer:** Charlaine Harris owns Sookie and Eric and Bill and Dr. Ludwig and Clancy and Pam. I own Bonnie and Dr. Gumby.

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**Chapter 11: The Choice**

**Eric's POV**

I rose with the taste of her in my mouth.

Immediately, the memory of my Beloved spread before me, offering herself to me and crying my name, made me hard and long to take her again. I vaulted from the tiny space to make it so. No time for careful sniffing of the air to assess the situation. Nothing but my instinct to find and claim my Bonded.

Now. Mine.

I stalked toward her bedroom, naked and ready, and found, for the first time, her bedroom door closed. An unusual turn of events, but no matter. What was mine was beyond that door and I would have her.

But my single purpose faltered when I saw writing on the door. A note, from the aide Bonita:

_Good evening, Mr. Northman,_

_I spoke with Dr. Ludwig this evening and she advised me that Sookie should not be disturbed tonight. She had a very bad night terror and was upset most of the day. She is to sleep as much as possible. Please call Dr. Ludwig if you have any questions._

_If she does wake up, there's a covered dish with heating instructions in the fridge. She should try to eat something. The only thing I could get her to eat today was breakfast. If she does eat, please give her another tab of Xanax. It's in the bottle by her bed. _

_Finally, Dr. Ludwig said to tell you that if Sookie insists on getting up, you may want to walk with her a bit to prevent muscle atrophy. _

_As always, if there's anything you'd like me to do or get for Sookie during the day tomorrow, please let me know in your morning note. _

_Sincerely,_

_Bonnie_

_PS--Thank you for the bonus. You are very generous. I love working with Sookie. She's a sweetheart._

I scowled at the note and then down at myself. My muscles twitched with instinct: The instinct to wake her and make her well with my body and the instinct to give to her, even space and time if that would better make her well. Though I couldn't imagine that would be better for her than me. She had been well last night--very, very well. Beautiful. Passionate. Alive.

I nudged the door open an inch. Sookie was a quiet lump under her old quilt, facing away from me. Her hair shone dully in the moonlight from her window and my robe slipped slightly over her shoulder, exposing the promise of her neck. My cock twitched at the sight.

The negligee lay on the pillow beside her.

My fingers on the doorknob squeezed and I heard the old brass of it groan in protest. It went against everything in my nature to leave her there. I stared intently at her for several minutes and tested our bond. I could feel the humming of her life force, but that was all. I scowled in her direction, angry that the bond had been decimated again, by some dark magic I'd never before encountered. I could hear her breathing and her heartbeat, so slow and soothing that it began to calm even my lust. I breathed deep her scent and it filled me, surrounded me and I began to grow hard again.

_She must be well,_ I reminded myself. _Human and young._

If she must sleep... If she must be unconscious during my few precious hours with her, I would allow it. The better to have her healed and rested tomorrow night. I am immortal. I have time.

I allowed the door to close quietly and walked silently into the kitchen. I heated a blood, and then another, and sat in the darkened kitchen until I could regulate my instincts. The quiet creaking of the old house and my Bonded's breathing were my only music.

I could leave her be, for a short while. I had work to do. I could bathe--it had been days since I'd allowed myself the pleasure, desiring instead to bathe in Sookie. I retrieved my laptop and reviewed my emails and signed off on some projects, sending Bobby his orders for the next day.

I looked about the house and found that the firewood was depleted. I so enjoyed my time with Sookie in front of that fire, hideous blanket and all. I wondered if there were more wood outside. I would want to be prepared should Sookie rise and choose to join me before the fire.

I headed back to the guest room and pulled on my pajama bottoms. Passing my Bonded's door, I couldn't help but pause and observe my Sookie again. Still slumped int he same spot, but her head had curved slightly toward me. Her brow was furrowed. My warrior. She is mending, I told myself. She is mending. She must. I considered abandoning my mission and resting with Sookie. I knew if she roused and were frightened, I could hear her immediately, and that I could be to her almost as quickly. But that she should endure a moment of loneliness seemed wrong and like a betrayal. A betrayal that hinted at a larger one. My muscles made to head toward Sookie's bed, but I stopped. If I entered, I would wake her. And if I woke her, I would turn her to me and kiss her and... I was becoming hard at the thought. Best to leave her be for the moment.

I turned to the door and stalked out, searching her yard.

I saw Bill immediately, jaundiced and leaning heavily against a tree.

I nodded to him as I passed and headed behind the house, looking for a wood pile. "Bill."

"Eric." His voice was faint and craggy. I did not spare time looking at him. There was no wood behind the house. I would have to add that to Bobby's list of projects for tomorrow.

I was heading back in the kitchen door when I heard Bill croak toward me. "How is she? She's been screaming."

"Yes, she has," I said stiffly, looking at the door. "She is sleeping. She is healing. Much better than she was several days ago when I arrived."

I turned to face him, leveling my gaze and crossing my arms against my chest. Even to myself, I felt like a guard, protecting the house and its precious cargo. "When did you return?"

"Dr. Ludwig released me two nights ago. She sent me home with a willing donors and arranged for nightly feedings for me, until the silver is completely cleared from my system. She thinks I have a 50-50 chance of a full recovery."

And then he paused and I could tell by his stance that he was filled with rage. But he contained it. Good boy. "You know. I know you saw me. Was all that really necessary?"

A smile twitched across my face and I looked deep into his eyes for a long minute.

Finally, I turned and pulled the screen door open. As I entered, I whispered, just loud enough for Bill to hear, not loud enough to wake Sookie, "You are dismissed. If I require your help with my Bonded, I will call you."

As the door closed, I heard Bill mutter, "She hasn't chosen you yet."

I allowed the door to slam.

****

I stood under the hot stream of water. How awkward and lonely without my Bonded.

And what a gift, memories. I recalled that first night together--the first night I claimed her, though I was unwell and knew not the great gift she'd given me. How she had sighed and caught her breath though she kept her back rigid. And then, finally, soaped up her hands and began a careful, gentle exploration of my hind quarters. How she loved it and how her pulse had broken into a gallop. It was clear to me even then, even in my altered state, that Sookie wanted me. Had wanted me. Would claim me if she could remove the fear and doubt from her eyes.

I could feel the slickness of her skin under the water even now. And to taste those breasts for the first time. It had been a miracle for my mouth and senses, how she trembled, how sensitive she was to everything I did. How she chose it. And when she had cooed and moved against my fingers as if it were the most natural thing in the world, as if we two were made for just this. And even though I could remember nothing, and I felt Sookie as a fresh revelation, there was something else that my body remembered. It had, even then, felt that moment with great anticipation, as if I'd been building up to this moment for years. Maybe centuries.

I had lifted her from the tub so aggressively that I'd torn the curtain from its hooks, the feel of her against me so exquisite.

I concentrated on that, on Sookie's wet body--healed, well--against me, moving boldly, wanting, demanding, and found myself with my fingers. I was turgid, ready. My large hand could not be mistaken for my Bonded's small, hot one, but I made do. I remembered laying in her bed with her naked for the first time. After long, needing kisses, when her hand had snaked down, clasped me tentatively, and then proceeded. She was a natural. She was perfect.

Ugh.

And then... Ohhh. Then, just as she was guiding me into her folds for the first time... My hips lunged even now, against my palm, at what that had done to me.

Ungh... feeling how ready she was... mmm...

I thrust again against my palm, smearing my liquid against the head on the recoil.

She had reached up. Huh. Reached up.

_Thrust_.

Reached and she had... Uh. She had licked... the.. tip... of my.... Ugh... of my fang. Fearless. Desiring _all_ of me.

_Thrust_.

I grunted out loud, and a hot shiver ran down my body, clinching my buttocks. Sookie's favorite part of me.

_Thrust_. Ugh. Her fingers. I hoped I wasn't waking my Bonded.

_Thrust_. Ughn.

I hoped... Ughn. Hope I _was_ waking her and she would come to me and claim me. That I could take her in this room also.

_Thrust_. Uhgn.

Her... ugh... Her pressed up against this tile, thighs spread wide... pinned by my weight.

_Thrust_. Ughn ugh....

Wrapping me....Mmm. Ugh. Wrapping me in her... her hot wetness.

Ugh. _Thrust_. Fuck.

Yes.

Her teeth clinched.... Hips... ughn... Hips curved to me, pressing... demanding. More. Mine.

_Thrust_. Fuck.

_Bite, Eric, please. Bite._ Her pulsing neck, throbbing with that rich blood. The feel of it... ughn. In my mouth, on my lips...

_Thrust_. Yes.

Fuck.

Yes.

The feel... oh. Ughn. The feel of her Ughn. Fuck... Her pussy claiming me, clamping down around me and pulling me tighter inside her.

_Thrust_.

Fuck.

Swelling inside her, pressing against her clinching flesh.... so... hot. So wanting. Yes. Yes.

_I'm yours, Eric. Always. I'm yours._

UGHN! Ughn. Yes. Fuck. M.. Mine. Mine.

The tension spread up my body, contracting me as it went, throwing my head back as I came as quietly as I could. Which is to say, not very quietly at all.

I turned, hoping Sookie's eyes were on me, witnessing what she did to me.

The room was empty.

****

I slid into bed with my Bonded, now that I was clean and had addressed my instincts. I moved up against her and wrapped an arm around her gently. Her breathing sped a little, as did her pulse. But her eyes remained closed, fluttering with dreams.

Watching humans sleep had always seemed like a waste of time to me. I thought back on all my lovers over the past millennium--those who warranted remembering, anyway--and couldn't recall one that seemed interesting enough to watch sleep. Most had had to be glamoured and so were half incapacitated, anyway,only good for their bodies. Some of their bodies had been spectacular, I admit, but hardly worth the time to watch in slumber. I preferred them in action, yeilding to me.

The rest were devotees of the occult and longed for me to make them vampire. They went along willingly, holding my head to their necks as I'd fed, hoping I'd drain them and give them my blood so they could rise immortal. Pathetic creatures. They'd been right about one side of the equation, anyway. One wouldn't want a child who was so desperate for the undead life. They would be dissatisfied as soon as they achieved it, and they'd hate you. I'd known many makers who had regretted the whim.

And other vampires--I hadn't willingly bedded another vampire in centuries, except Pam. She was my child, a different circumstance altogether. In general, it was too much of a power struggle to take another vampire to bed. Too desperate to stake a claim, to exert control over me. Never did I willingly share blood with them.

And the last fairy I had caught I'd turned into a bloody mess before I could come to my release, I was so wild with bloodlust. It was wholly satisfying in one sense but left me alone and was, after all, very messy to clean up. So much wasted blood.

I looked down at my Bonded and took a deep breath of her scent. It must have been powerful magic that had allowed me to forget all she had done to me and for me for those few days. The urge to wake her was almost overwhelming, which is saying quite a lot, given my centuries of control. I lay there with her, feeling her pulse, feeling her close, for hours. I allowed her breathing to lull me and her heartbeat to soothe me and played with my side of the bond, pushing it, pressing it, seeking to send her calm and love and reassurance.

But the bond was a frayed thing, incapable, just now, of expanding and reinstating itself. I wondered idly how long it would take to heal. I knew from my one other experience with such a bond, many centuries ago, that its magic was precarious, subject to the whims and magic of the beings it bound. But it had always, always returned. It would return with Sookie, as well, I thought strictly. It would return.

In this way I allowed the presence and restfulness of my Bonded to lull me. I wondered at her utter unconsciousness this night. In the past when I came to her, she roused, murmured my name. I wondered what magic, what devil--that looseness, that wildness I'd sensed in her the first night--had haunted her this day. I wondered if my presence in her bed might have calmed her. I grew irrationally angry at the thought that I could not be awake to soothe her during her daytime panic. Daytime vulnerability is a sore point with every vampire. But Sookie's illness made my inability to rouse during the day all the worse. It tensed my stomach and I found my body remembering the sickening helplessness I had felt when I had seen her that night, swollen and covered in bruises, her precious, unique blood thrown away by those psychotic fairies. I consciously kept my grip on my beloved light. I wanted to squeeze and rip and destroy. My hands itched with it.

I listened carefully to Sookie's breathing and pulse, willing the bloodlust to die down again. In its place came an aggravation--at myself, that I had allowed my need for her last night to supersede her need for rest. I flashed to her slumped, sated and asleep, as I snaked her arms into my robe at dawn. She'd been so adorable, swimming in my robe. She had not protested my ministrations last night or her lack of sleep, I thought smugly.

I wondered if I should invite the Shifter over to sit with her this weekend. I hated the thought of his smell in this house--worse, of his smell on her--but it was my duty to stand sentry, and if I was unavailable, if Bonnie would not be present, someone would be necessary.

I was pleased that she was sleeping well this night, however. And I allowed myself the thought that, though I had not been able to save her from her daytime terror, I was here now. I was here and I would be here. Regardless of Bill's juvenile whining, she was mine. And she would be mine.

***

Two hours before dawn, I stroked her cheek and neck with the back of my fingers and began whispering to her a poem I'd heard long ago, when I was still a relatively young vampire. I recalled the dry air and the large bonfire and the man in white robes singing before a lyre.

In the language I first heard it in, reeking as it did of the dry, grassy steppes of the Empire and of myrrh and dark-lashed women, I whispered:

_From the beginning of my life_

_I have been looking for your face_

_but today I have seen it._

_Today I have seen_

_the charm, the beauty,_

_the unfathomable grace_

_of the face_

_that I was looking for._

My Bonded stirred as I spoke softly and I paused, waiting to see if she would rouse, if she was well. She turned her head toward me and furrowed her brow.

"Eric," she rasped.

"Shhh, my lover, you need your sleep," I said and brushed my lips across her cheekbone. Still too prominent, but lovely. Lovely.

She pulled my arm closer to her, pressing my hand between her breasts and into her breastbone. I felt her heartbeat on my fingertips.

She closed her eyes and shook her head, frustration playing across her face. "I had a terrible day."

I nodded into her delicious-smelling hair. "So I understand. Would you like to talk about it? Are you hungry?"

I listened for her stomach and it gurgled. When I moved to pull away, to head to the kitchen, she held her hand against mine on her chest.

"Maybe in a little bit. I just...." she sighed and a tear dripped from here eye. "I just need you here for a little first."

My warrior. So weary. I kissed her hair again and nodded. She closed her eyes and let the tears continue to flow down her cheeks. I clutched her tighter and after a few minutes, continued to recite the words in that ancient tongue.

_Today I have found you_

_and those that laughed_

_and scorned me yesterday_

_are sorry that they were not looking_

_as I did._

_I am bewildered by the magnificence_

_of your beauty_

_and wish to see you with a hundred eyes._

She sobbed and I felt her tense. I rocked her back against me, holding her tighter.

_My heart has burned with passion_

_and has searched forever_

_for this wondrous beauty_

_that I now behold._

_I am ashamed _

_to call this love human_

_and afraid of God_

_to call it divine._

She tensed and shook her head and made to edge away from me on the bed. "N-no," she sobbed and I felt her ragged breath on my chest. "I... I don't...."

But I could not have her pull away, not now. I pulled her tighter, kissed her and continued.

_Your fragrant breath_

_like the morning breeze_

_has come to the stillness of the garden_

_You have breathed new life into me_

_I have become your sunshine_

_and also your shadow._

"No, Eric, stop," she sobbed. But I was unwilling to heed her.

_My soul is screaming in ecstasy_

_Every fiber of my being_

_is in love with you_

"Eric, I can't," she started again.

"Quiet now," I whispered against her. "I am here. You are safe."

She turned herself to face me and buried her face in my chest sobbing against me.

_Your effulgence_

_has lit a fire in my heart_

_and you have made radiant_

_for me_

_the earth and sky._

"I don't deserve it," she whispered, shaking. I stroked her hair slowly and rhythmically. Kissed her head, her forehead, her wet eyelids. I pulled her chin up so I could look in her eyes.

_My arrow of love_

_has arrived at the target_

_I am in the house of mercy_

_and my heart_

_is a place of prayer._

I brushed my lips over hers softly. My Bonded. My beloved. But she pulled away and looked up at me. Frightened. Angry. No, enraged. Disappointed. Ashamed. Guilty. Confused. All shone in her wet eyes. I wondered if that was how I had appeared to Sookie when she brought me into her home with cut feet and no shirt in the middle of winter.

A year ago, it seems, I realized suddenly.

I kissed her again, enjoying her soft warmth. But then she wasn't so soft. Her mouth tensed under me and she used both hands to press against my chest and pull away. She sat up, wiping her tears with my robe.

I sat up beside her and turned her to face me.

"Eric," she started. And then she thought better of it. She kissed me back, but when I pulled in to softly open her mouth with my tongue, she pulled back again. She clinched together, pulling her hands into the long arms of my robe and burying her face in her chest. Her voice came out a growl.

"Eric, cards on the table." Her mouth, that beautiful mouth, was a hard line. "I need to know where you were."

I looked at her and it was instantly clear what she meant. I wished I could misconstrue it and tell her I'd been in the yard, in the shower, thinking of her. But I knew she was thinking of that terrible day.

I looked at her. She was in such anguish. I brushed her hair away from her face and felt a surge of some foreign emotion in my chest. I had been expecting this conversation that first night, and was surprised it had taken this long for it to come to the surface. I was yet unsure where to begin.

If I had needed to breath, I wouldn't have been able to.

"My lover," I started. My body trembled just for a second with the unbidden memory of her pain. I will never forget the hour of pure torment that was her surging pain mixed with her unrelenting pleas for me to find her, save her. I looked into her eyes and steeled myself. This might be the last image I had of her before she rescinded my invitation. But I expected her to be relieved, for us to return to being lovers when this was over. Even in this, I knew, I would be victorious.

Still, I was briefly relieved that the bond was closed. If it were open, her sense of betrayal may have hobbled me, made the already arduous words more difficult.

I moved my hands off her and curled them into fists. I had nearly gone mad with the hunt, nearly severed Pam's head from her body in rage and frustration and helplessness as the hunt dragged on from 15 minutes to 30 to 45 to, dear gods, an hour. Knowing I would not be the first thing she saw when she was made safe made me want to drape myself in silver and wait for dawn. If it would have saved her, I would have suffered it gladly. But to have to keep moving forward, to have to speak, coordinate and direct and engage in war at the same time pushed me nearly past my limits.

"Sookie." I started again through clinched teeth. Warriors face every challenge. I leveled my gaze at her.

"I was in my office at Fangtasia when I felt your panic and a terrible... nothingness. I had prepared for this moment, had a battle plan. Bill called and I summoned Niall. I secured your place in Dr. Ludwig's clinic. Niall met Bill and searched for you through the Fairy realm while I followed with Pam in the cleanup van, tracking you through the bond. Once we were on our way, I worked with Niall's lieutenants to coordinated the ground attack on Breandan's troops and distract from Niall and Bill's rescue mission. I knew we would find you alive. I could... knew you were suffering," I said through clinched teeth, moving away from her now, instinctually, not wishing to hurt her in the reliving of it. Images flashed in my head of the vampires and weres the fairy assassins had left as rags. I twitched with rage.

"I arrived on Bill and Niall's heels but you had already lost consciousness," I looked in her eyes, a dark fury growing in my own. She tried to look away and I could see that the retelling was breaking loose that wild thing in her again. I held her upright by the shoulders as she slumped.

"Sookie, I felt every cut, every bite, every insult, every tear they subjected you to," I leveled my gaze at her, my voice suddenly quiet, colder than it had been. If I were a younger vampire, I would be shaking. Sookie was, and doubt and grief welled in her eyes. "I heard all your cries. I heard you calling me, begging me to save you and promising to be mine if I did. When I saw what they had done to you, how they had tied you and... hurt you... I became a berserker. I I tore Lochlan and Neave apart with my bear hands and drank their blood. I destroyed the farmhouse plank by plank and lit it afire.

"I joined Niall's forces and cut through a wide swath of fairies, praying each one could be Lochlan and Neave, though a quick death was too good for them. I fed liberally. I killed almost indiscriminately.

"It was only when I began to be full from the bloodlust that I returned to you, to protect you from the forces I had not been able to kill, who had deserted or hidden. I knew Breandan would not surrender, that he would track you to the clinic, and that I must get there first."

The bloodlust returned with the telling and I choked back my need to destroy. Sookie looked bewildered and, as she had done last night, her face was immobile as her eyes searched me, trying to absorb all I was telling her. And, frustratingly, trying to decide whether to believe me. This house, so ramshackle and suddenly like the little house in Arkansas. I itched to destroy it. To kill something. I removed my hands from Sookie and backed away. She slumped against the wall, her arms lifeless at her side. She looked in that moment as I had found her in Ludwig's clinic. Unable to move, battle scarred and weakened by her torture. Her healed skin was the only hint that she was a month out from the battle.

My muscles tensed protectively.

I finally squeezed my eyes shut and snarled. "Fucking _fairies_. If I ever find another I will kill on the spot, without explanation. It will _not_ be swift. It will _not_ be merciful."

When I had curtailed my rage, I looked at her and all the anguish roiling through her. She was relieved and then enraged and then agonized and then frightened and then all them all at once.

Finally, I said, "It was more important to me that you be safe than that I be the one to save you."

I stroked her arm. I hoped she understood what a sacrifice that was for me, how she'd changed me.

Instead, she erupted. She flung my arms off her and shot up from the bed.

"But it was important to me, Eric! It was important to me! I've spent the last month thinking you'd abandoned me! I thought you didn't care about me, that the bond didn't work, or if it did that you didn't care. All I saw was that you sauntered in after the dirty work was done and gave me your blood! Like the fucking conquering hero!"

She was screaming now, and I knew that if Bill had disobeyed me, he would hear this.

I spoke quietly, seeking to soothe her.

"I know this. I am sorry that I allowed you to live under that illusion for so long."

I did not mention her error: that she had rescinded my invitation before I could explain myself.

"No!" she spit, that wildness in her eyes now. "No, not good enough! You could have come sooner! You could have reassured me."

She was roaring now, shaking. "What was it? Pride? That famous vampire secrecy? You couldn't admit in front of Bill and Clancy and the rest of them that you knew I needed you and that you'd answered my call? That I was more than an asset, that I _mattered_ to you!?"

Rage bubbled to my surface and I twitched, my hand tensing and releasing methodically. Had I not taken bullets for her? Had I not saved her from Victor Madden and Felipe with the knife? Had I not covered her with my body to shield her from an arrow at the coronation? Had I not provided for her? Given her the measly gifts she would allow me? Could she not have the slightest faith in me?

"Sookie," I said with quiet rage. "I knew that being in your presence in my state of bloodlust would have been dangerous for you, given your fairy blood. I also knew that my presence would be more useful in the battlefield than sitting at your bedside while Breandan's troops advanced. I also knew I could trust Niall to bring you to Ludwig safely. I _was_ there for you. I was protecting you with my sword."

She was so enraged I feared she might become a berserker, as well. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head violently. "No. No! Not enough."

"Sookie," I admonished coolly. "You would prefer that I leave you there to be tortured longer, permit it, just so you could see my face first? That I risk your survival by putting myself in your presence when I was in a killing state of mind? It would have been unconscionable. _You_--your survival--was more important than my heart's desire or yours. I knew you would be mine again, and I knew we would have this talk, and that if you were smart, you would forgive me."

"Mr. High-Handed," she growled and turned away from me. I was unsure that my words had registered with her yet.

"You could have told me at the clinic where you had been," she muttered. "Y-you made me wait." Her voice was suddenly smaller, hopeless. "You made me wonder. I... I hurt so much. I've been so alone. You didn't even call!"

I could see the energy was leaving her, that she would collapse momentarily, so I moved to her side and held her to me as she sagged. Softly, I said, "You sent me away, my lover. You rescinded my invitation."

I rubbed my cheek in her hair. She tensed and I could feel her sobbing again.

"I did not know you were so hurt. I would not have left," I said quietly. "I assumed this was just another of your young human games--that you were running away as you had from... in the past."

I would not bring his name into the conversation. I felt her warm and soft and fragile in my arms. I brushed my lips over her hair.

"You are so strong. You have healed before. If I had known your state, I would have insisted."

I stood silently, listening to her heartbeat race and feel her sobbing against my chest. She leaked so very much.

"I am sorry," I added simply.

We stood this way for a long minute--her pressed warmly against me and me bracing her in my arms. I could feel her tense in my embrace. I was suddenly amazed. Even without the bond, I could tell that she still hadn't forgiven me, that she was uncertain of me.

This did not please me. She should be relieved and amorous toward me now, but she just seemed spent and resigned and unhappy. My earlier confidence was shaken. I did not know how to proceed. I stood and waited for her to indicate her mood.

At least it seemed clear that she would not rescind my invitation this night. Though I had been wrong before about this human. Could Bill be right? Was it possible that she had not chosen me yet?

That she really wasn't mine?

I was deep in thought when I heard Sookie add in a sleepy, rasping voice, "You better be prepared to be honest about this with the doctor tomorrow."

I looked down at her in shock. I thought back, drawing to me what Sookie had said of this appointment: A doctor shaped like a figurine. "Couples counseling." I had thought I would simply receive instructions on how to aid my Bonded's healing. Did she expect me to speak about that night openly with a strange demon? With another supe? In this very small world.

I thought this through very quickly and then, to please Sookie, nodded.

After I had plied her with food and a tab of Xanax and water, and Sookie was again asleep, I drifted to my computer just before dawn. Into my email program I wrote:

_Bobby,_

_Order firewood for the Bon Temps house, to be delivered today. Enough for a month._

_And bring my sword._

**

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ENDNOTE:** So you don't have to ask, that poem is real and I certainly didn't write it. It's by Rumi and called "The Face I Have Been Looking For." Sigh. And swoon.


	12. Chapter 12: Equal Match

**A/N: **This chapter was a doozy. I'm not sure any real therapist could cover this much ground in one session, but I wanted to cram it all in there. Tell me what you think of Dr. Gumby's POV. I'm curious if it works for you. Also, this chapter is the longest yet, just FYI. I hope you enjoy it. I'm excited about the next one!

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Disclaimer:** I don't own Eric or Sookie or Bobby Burnham. They belong to Charlaine Harris. Dr. Gumby and Bonnie are mine.

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**Chapter 12: Equal Match**

**Sookie's POV**

I was sitting on the edge of the little twin bed, a blood in my hand and my foot twitching impatiently. As soon as that big, dumb vampire rose, I was gonna give him this blood and then I was going to give him a talking-to. As if his little insults last night weren't enough (_I thought this was another of your young human games... I knew you would be mine again, and I knew that we would have this talk and I knew that if you were smart you would forgive me... _Jerk), I'd been greeted this afternoon with Bobby spitting venom at me from his brain.

Sure, I'd slept late, but I figured that was my due after the night I'd had. You can't have a mighty big fight in the middle of the night with a Viking and not need a little time to recoup. I was glad once again that I didn't live closer to town, with neighbors who could have heard all that yelling. I swear, I liked to have slept till dusk with the amount of energy I expended listening to Eric's story and his opinions of my smarts and my maturity.

But when I finally did get up, Bobby was there and he'd brought more firewood than I'd ever seen in one place aside from those roadside stands where they sell it. There was a truck beeping in, backing up to my house and workers unloading log after log. It looked like they'd dropped a forest so I could warm my hearth. I thought I'd have wood for the next year, at this rate.

And then Bobby had sneered and brought in a giant, gleaming sword.

What was Eric thinking? I swear, I could stake him.

I didn't know what Eric expected me to do after he told me what happened that night, I thought as I stared at the empty carpet in the guest room's closet, waiting. Did he want me to just clasp my hands together by my cheek and declare him my big, strong hero? Did he want me to drop to my knees, cover him with kisses, beg him to take me? I'd bet that's exactly it.

He knew a lot about a lot of things, this 1,000-year-old vamp, but he still had a lot to learn about Sookie Stackhouse.

Not that I'm made of stone, mind you. After Bobby had finally cleared out and I got a little food in me and a little time to think, I started to see that what Eric had done sure was something. If what he'd told me was true--and you never could tell with Eric--he'd helped coordinate a whole war just to save me. He'd arranged my rescue, thrown Breandan's troops off the scent long enough for Bill and Great Grandfather to reach me, made sure Dr. Ludwig would heal me afterwards, and he'd gone to war himself and killed a bunch of fairies for no other reason than that they'd hurt me.

He had no money to gain from this, that I could see. Niall and him didn't seem to be best buddies after it was all over, so I didn't think he was building an alliance with the Fae--who were now blocked into the Fairy realm, anyway. It wasn't a vampire issue. I think he might even had hid it from his vampire buddies, so it might have been a politically dangerous thing for him to do--something that went against everything I knew about one Mr. Eric Northman.

Nope. That left only one explanation, one that I hesitated to even consider because if it weren't true, I didn't know how I would recover: He'd done it because he'd wanted to, like he'd come here because he'd wanted to. He'd done it because... I mattered to him. He didn't have an ulterior motive.

That sure was something to think on.

It'd given me a little pang of something sweet and warm when it'd struck. Even now, revisiting the idea, I had to blink away tears. And he'd been so sweet last night, as he had the night before, waking me by whispering those sweet words in a language I swear I'd never heard him speak before. I about melted into a puddle and stayed there till Bonnie scooped me up and put me in the shower to prepare for tonight.

For an hour or two I craved Eric with an intensity that scared me. I just wanted to bite his neck and suck on his nipples and hear him groan. I kept hearing him in the back of my mind, saying, _You're mine, Sookie. You're mine, you're mine._ And feeling his hands roam over me, claiming me. I could hardly breathe with wanting him.

But if he'd been so sweet, and if I mattered to him, why was I still so angry? Why didn't that fix everything? I knew why. Because he _had_ hidden it from his vampire buddies. He didn't come to me and tell me he loved me--if he loved me, I thought quickly--that he was sorry he'd been late. He didn't even tell me what had happened, not till I got near-hysterical in my bedroom at three in the morning and demanded it.

So what? I was worth saving but not worth acknowledging? Was he ashamed of me? Was he just protecting what was his, whatever that meant? Did he love me? Did I _want_ him to? Did I love him?

And I couldn't shake this sadness--this grief, still--that he hadn't been the first face I'd seen when I was saved. I hated to need saving. I didn't know why but I needed it to be him and that dead thing inside me kept me cold and angry and scared and sad.

My head hurt.

By the time I'd finally gotten dressed today--honest to God dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and even underthings, a red-letter day in the Stackhouse home!--I was a mess. Of course I was a mess! I had a thousand-year-old vampire calling me immature and not acknowledging me to his buddies; my emotions and my body were fighting with each other; I had a aide who was screaming her thoughts at me; and I had a therapist who looked like a children's cartoon character. Why wouldn't I be crazy?

I looked out the window. The sky was streaked with purple and getting darker fast. He'd be up any time. When I heard a little creaking under the floorboards--or was it the bond?--I shot up and stood there with the blood and made to cross my arms.

But before I could get my arms fully crossed, Eric was in front of me, in all his tall, blond glory. He snatched the blood out of my hand and pressed himself into me.

"I do not want this," he said, placing the blood on the windowsill. "I want you."

And before I could protest, Eric was bending me back and taking my mouth in a long, slow and deep kiss that made me burn from the inside out. Oh, Lord have mercy. A small part of my brain resisted and tried to get me to focus on Eric's behavior last night, on the forrest of firewood behind my house, on the... oh gracious... on the sword. I tried to keep my back rigid, really I did. But when a vampire with a thousand years of practice kisses you, you know it to your tippy toes. I kept my arms pressed against his chest, just in case he got any ideas that I wanted to do more than this before the doctor got here. And also, because I couldn't resist the way his muscles moved under his cool skin. I marveled again at how a person could want another person so much.

When I started making little moaning sounds, I forced myself to pull away.

"Eric!" I said, trying to regain my backbone. I smoothed my hand over my high ponytail, soothing myself. "The doctor will be here soon. Drink your blood."

He swept his fingertips along my neck in a way that made me shiver. "I'd rather drink yours," he whispered in my ear. Just like that, my brain turned to goo and I looked up at him. I felt myself flush... everywhere.

He smiled smugly and let out a loud laugh. Despite myself, I liked the sound. It sounded like the Eric I knew. He clutched me close and gave me one more hard kiss before reaching for the blood and taking a swig.

"I am pleased that you did not rescind my invitation last night," he said, smiling triumphantly and kissing me again. I got a little taste of TrueBlood. Ick. "Thank you."

For a minute, I didn't know what to say. I just looked up at him. My mind was still recovering from his fingers on my neck. And I realized with a start that I hadn't even really considered sending him away. Normally, it would be a perfect way to cap off an argument with him. There was something so satisfying about watching him walk out of the house backwards with that helpless look on his face. But he'd been cooing in my ear so sweetly, and I was so taken with my need for him and my anger at him that... I don't know what. I just couldn't. I couldn't have stood it.

Eric finished his blood and looked at me distastefully. "You are dressed," he said.

I rolled my eyes and spoke slowly, as if he were a particularly dense child. "Yes, Eric. I have clothes on. You didn't expect me to stay in your robe forever, did you?"

But of course, he would. He smirked at me and raised one eyebrow to confirm my suspicions.

This gave me enough strength to step back from him and away, and I found as I walked toward the hall, I was regaining my strength. What did this vampire _do_ to me? I swear, I felt glamoured.

I heard him chuckle and in a moment, he was dressed and next to me in the kitchen. I felt him behind me, rubbing his hand on my butt. It felt... I shivered. _Stop it, Eric,_ I wanted to say. Or some part of me wanted to say it. The rest of me tingled helplessly at his touch. But I kept my back straight and ladled a little more gumbo into a bowl. Bonnie had spent all day making it, she'd told me when I'd finally gotten up--enough for the whole weekend, if I wanted it. She'd been worried about me eating during the day. I'd been touched and eaten a big bowl for lunch as thanks. Now, nervous about Dr. Gumby and that big sword, I decided I could eat more.

Which reminded me.

"Eric, what's with the sword? And all the firewood?"

"You were out," he said simply, brushing his cool lips against my neck. Why had I put my hair up again? "You do not want a fire? It is still cold out, is it not?"

Trust Eric to start with the least troubling issue first--and to turn it back on me. That wasn't the point and I told him so. It had been sweet, though, and I knew it. It was even the high quality kind--low smoke, dry as can be. I couldn't explain why I was bothered by it, but I was.

"Yes, a fire would be nice, but that's an awful lot of firewood," I said. And then, softly, "It's too much."

I could feel Eric shrug against me. Unrepentant as ever.

"And the sword, Eric?" I glowered at my gumbo. "Why would you bring a sword into my house? You're not going to hurt Dr. Gumby, are you? I'll be real put out if you kill my therapist."

I turned around to face him. Big mistake. I was face-to-face with his strong, imposing chest and I had to bite back the urge to kiss it, and maybe bite, maybe just a little. I forced myself to hold still.

But then Eric's chest rumbled with laughter and I felt his arms around me. It was so nice, I stood there for a minute with my bowl of soup between us.

"Dear one," he murmured, as if we hadn't had a huge fight last night. He sure woke up on the right side of the hidey-hole today. "If he is important to you, I will not kill him. But..."

That "but" worried me. I pushed away from him and sat down and stared at my gumbo, scooping a spoonful to my mouth. It was spicy and tangy and tasted good on this cold winter evening.

"But I do not intend to let the demon leave the house with any personal knowledge of me that could be used to weaken my position or put our safety in peril."

_Our_? My stomach fluttered. Did I forgive him last night and did we have sex? Surely I'd remember _that_. No. No. He was just being high-handed again. And sexy. Dammit. I needed to get ahold of myself.

Then what he said sunk in and the irritation flooded back. "'Weaken your position?' Is that what you call acknowledging our... whatever it is we have here? Is that what you call _honesty_?" I turned and looked in his eyes, doing my level best to give him my _I mean business, buster_ glare. "Is that what it was a month ago? Because I've gotta tell you, Eric, if you want to be with me, you're going to have to start talking--about me and to me."

I just looked at him and his face didn't change at all. Maybe one little twitch, and I couldn't tell what it meant.

"I am honest with you, my lover," he said, putting his hands on my shoulders.

I couldn't look at him anymore. I felt panic rise in me and wasn't sure what it meant. I felt small and hollow and scared and curled into my gumbo, letting the steam from it wash over me, praying it could calm me. But no luck. Tears. Dammit.

What did he want with me? Did he want to _be_ with me? Was he going to leave after I got better? Would I be all alone again? I gobbled at my soup, wishing I could gobble those words right back into my mouth.

While I was staring intently at my soup, willing my tear ducts to dry up, Eric placed one big, cool hand on my back, between my shoulder blades and let his fingers trace circles there, easing my muscles. I slumped some more. When I didn't stir, he walked into the living room. I sat and finished my gumbo.

I didn't look up again until the doorbell rang, I was so overwhelmed with... what? Grief? Shame? Love? What? When I walked past the living room to get the door, I couldn't believe my eyes.

Eric was sitting on the couch, his big ole sword across his knees, sharpening it.

**Eric's POV**

_Thwish._

_Thwish._

_Thwish._

I loved the sound of the slicked whetting stone against the steel blade of my broadsword. It sounded like battle. It sounded like victory. It sounded like power.

Faced with the prospect of the demon therapist and my Bonded's order that I not kill him, I retreated to the living room and to the activity that calmed me most.

I had spent hours at this task, honing the blade to a razor tip. A kind of sharpening meditation. Even as it calmed me, I knew it strengthened my position. When the demon entered, he would know immediately that if he lived through the session, it would be because I chose to allow it.

As I focused on angling the stone just right to produce a perfect edge, I allow my mind to wander. Sookie's blood smelled even more delicious when she was angry. The scent of her in my room this night, the fact that she did not rescind my invitation even in the midst of our fight, the fact that she was waiting for me, tensed my muscles and I sprang from that inferior space to claim her.

The feel of her in my arms, to know that finally she knew--she knew the reason she did not see me first, she knew I had taken great personal risk to secure her safety--filled me with something close to giddiness, though that was a feeling foreign to this old body. I allowed myself to marvel in the emotion. Only she had revived such feelings of vitality in me.

Even when she had insisted that I drink that putrid synthetic blood--_especially_ when she insisted on it, with her succulent neck so close to me--I found I could not stand to be far from her. My fangs had run down almost as soon as I had felt her presence. I could not prevent my hand from stroking that spot on her soft, delicate skin. I could not stop myself from caressing the curve of her bottom, feeling the lace of her panties under her jeans. I would enjoy removing those later. Her shivers and moans and blush pleased me. I knew she would forgive me. She needed me. I could smell it on her.

I had hoped that my explanation of my actions a month ago would put her doubts to an end, but I should have realized that the path to happiness with my Beloved is strewn with boulders. All must be climbed. So when she admonished me for protecting my power position by not declaring myself in front of other supes, and especially my underlings, I should not have been surprised.

But I was. And, if I am honest, hurt.

Of course I protected my strength. Of course I didn't explain what had happened just then. I had just minutes to locate her in that clinic and feed her my blood before Breandan's troops arrived, and I knew it. It was no time for tender assurances. If she were well, she would understand that. She is a warrior. She knows the importance of expediency and the danger of sentimentality in the midst of battle.

But no matter. It will all be resolved in time.

My mind drifted to a lighter matter. Sookie's concern for her doctor and his unusual, to her, appearance. _Do not kill him, but I do not respect him enough to call him by his name. _Sookie always befuddled me.

Speaking of the doctor, as I completed one side of the blade and turned it the other direction, the doorbell rang.

I did not raise my head from my activity. Better that he found me in the act of preparing for battle, and be shaken by my silent resolve. It took an extraordinarily long time for my Bonded to answer the door and I could hear her labored breathing and her heart rate spike as she did so. I had a moment of regret. I should have answered for her so she did not have to suffer. I heard the doctor and my Bonded exchange pleasantries and heard Sookie offer him a drink and show him to his chair.

While she was in the kitchen fetching his beverage, I leaned over my sword.

_Thwish._

_Thwish._

_Thwish._

And then into the corner of my vision came a long narrow foot on a long, narrow leg. And next to that leg, I saw the tip of a sword press into Sookie's soft wood floor.

My muscles tensed. I stood to my full height, my sword gripped tightly in my hand. I leveled my gaze at him.

I found myself mere inches taller than the demon doctor. He was long and narrow, as my Bonded had described, but other than that, he looked like any other demon I had seen. With one hand, he was leaning on the sword as if it were a walking stick. With the other, he was blotting his face with a handkerchief. He smiled and his pointy, sharp teeth glistened in the lamplight.

"Ah, so you must be Miss Stackhouse's vampire," he said in a trilling, friendly voice. I merely gazed at him. "It is a pleasure to meet you. I am Dr. Harold Eugenides."

He looked at his handkerchief and back at me apologetically. "Such a warm evening."

Sookie stopped cold in entrance to the room. I could see her in my peripheral vision but did not turn my head. I was appraising the demon. My hand flexed on my sword, but I could feel from the demon that he did not intend a fight this night. I detected no aggression from him at all. Nor did he appear fazed by my show of force. Curious.

"Oh good gravy," I heard my Bonded say irritably from the door. The phrase was new to me and a smile twitched across my face. "OK, everyone with a sword: _Sit down_."

I held his eyes in my cool glare and did not move. Sookie huffed and handed the doctor a glass of ice. She stepped between myself and the doctor and pressed her warm body close enough to me that I could feel her heat flow off her in waves. She handed me another blood.

She sat down on the couch and tugged my hand, seeking to pull me down next to her. I stood until I'd watched the demon sink into his chair and drop his eyes from mine.

I nodded and sat beside my Bonded, placing a hand territorially on Sookie's neck, caressing her there. She felt exceedingly tense. I saw her glance from one sword to the other and felt a tremor of... remorse?... flicker through me. I had frightened my Bonded in her very fragile state. I twitched with the realization. I should not have brought it.

I caressed her neck more to soothe her and moved the sword out of her line of vision--but still within reach and within the demon's sight. Sookie shook her head from my caress, signaling that I should stop, but did not pull away. Very good. I was impatient for this session to be over.

I raised my brows, permitting him to begin.

The demon smiled kindly at my Bonded and then at myself, nodding to me.

"Before we begin, Mr..."

"Northman."

"Thank you, Mr. Northman. Before we begin, I would like to allay any concerns you have about this therapy and of our work together."

He eyed my sword. This gladdened me.

"I want you to understand that I have worked with supernatural creatures and their humans for hundreds of years, and I know how jealously we supes guard our... tenderer emotions and our privacy. Are you a very important vampire, Mr. Northman? Have you a position of authority in the hierarchy here?"

I did not respond and I could feel Sookie preparing to speak. One light squeeze of my hand on her neck snapped her mouth shut. I gazed at him. Finally, I nodded almost imperceptibly.

"I thought that might be the case," he said, smiling blandly. He pulled a series of papers from his case and handed them to me.

"I know that keeping your confidentiality is of utmost importance. I also know that for your Bonded to heal, we must speak as candidly as possible," he said as I reviewed the forms, which appeared to be a certificate, a contract and a bundle of herbs, along with a business card. "I believe it will go a great distance in alleviating some of her SPTSD symptoms."

Sookie suddenly seemed tense and sad, her jaw clinching. My fingers traced her jaw, massaging the little muscles there.

"What you hold there is certification from a very well regarded witch who is also bound by her own spell to forget my clients names as soon as she sees them," he said, nodding to the papers. "She has cast a spell on this house and on me. Whenever I walk within its walls, I will recall with perfect clarity what the two of you say and your histories. When I leave, however, I know nothing of it or of you. I am only aware that Miss Stackhouse is a client of mine and that I perform housecalls in her service."

He paused and smiled sweetly to my Bonded, lowering his head to her in deference. Sookie smiled sweetly. I restrained the impulse to kiss those soft lips.

"When and if we move this work to my New Orleans office, the witch will add that office to the spell. It works quite well. I have used it with many of my high-profile clients with great results. I would offer references, but that would undermine the whole point of anonymity, you see."

He smiled. He was quite pleased with himself. My face remained blank.

I glanced at the forms again. I would have to have my lawyer review them. I would need to consult with Ludwig about their veracity. I was a little reticent to involve witches, but I suppose if the spell was on him and not me, I could allow it.

I glanced at my Bonded, remembering her words--her threat, really, I thought with a glimmer of pleasure. That this small human would threaten a vampire--a very old and powerful one, no less, a vampire who elicited this amount of care from a strange demon--made my Bonded all the more fascinating to me. But now I saw the fear and tension and sadness in her eyes. I felt my stomach clinch with longing and need and with that unbidden desire, again, to offer myself selflessly to her.

I looked again at the forms and then at Dr. Eugenides. Ludwig did offer the demon as a specialist, and I had instructed her to provide my Sookie with the best care possible.

And, if anything went astray, I could always slice his long body in half.

I felt Sookie's eyes on me, and if for no other reason than to please her, I nodded and met his eyes with my own. Sookie would be the final death of me. One of these days, I would allow my love of her to cloud my decision making enough that I could not protect her. I prayed to Freya that today was not that day.

The doctor smiled very wide and then covered his teeth quickly and folded his long limbs in on himself to begin the session.

**Dr. Eugenides' POV**

With a light flourish of my hand, I twirled my pen and set it to paper. Mr. Northman and Miss Stackhouse were a striking couple. Very fae-looking. So fair. So strong. So beautiful. And Miss Stackhouse's rosy complexion and the relative ease of movement cheered me. Yes, she will be quite well quite quickly, I thought.

"You look lovely today, my dear," I said to the young part-fairy and smiled, careful to avoid triggering a memory with visions of my sharp teeth. "Am I to assume that your Bonded is doing his duty and giving you his blood?"

Ah, a lovely blush she has as well. This vampire is taking quite good care of her, indeed.

"I have healed her," said the vampire shortly. His fangs were still down from our earlier confrontation and it was quite clear that he would take any opportunity to assert his control of this situation. He was an imposing fellow, one used to directing conversation with a gesture or a single word, it appeared. And by the presence of the sword and his heavy build, I would guess a warrior. Perhaps even Viking, though such long-lived vampires are unlikely to share their thoughts with a human, much less a therapist. It would not be easy to get through what we must do today, but I had dealt with his type dozens of times over, and was quite sure of my ability to guide the conversation in a non-threatening way. I was pleased I thought to bring my sword, I thought to myself. I have not studied for centuries without cause.

I watched impassively as the vampire's hand stroked the long, delicate neck of his Bonded. I had seen this action many times among my patients, I vaguely recalled. Though I was unable to remember the names or specifics of my more high-powered supernatural clientele, the witch's spell allowed me to recall germane patterns of behavior, gestures and thought processes that were useful in my work. This gesture here, for instance: He believed himself to be calming her, but it was a reassuring gesture for the vampire as well. He was stroking her to hold her close, to remind himself that she was safe and she was his, for the sheer pleasure of it. Yes, this vampire loved his human.

"I'm so pleased you both agreed to meet with me today," I began, nodding toward the vampire, who's free hand was fingering the filagree on the hilt of his sword. "And, Mr. Northman, I'm honored by your decision to make yourself available to help mend your Bonded. You have gone a long way toward that already by sharing your blood. But this work, I believe, may quickly heal some of the more emotional wounds she has suffered--wounds that even your blood may not be able to touch."

The vampire leveled his gaze at me menacingly, but nodded that I should continue. I smiled a small smile and bowed my head to him in honor of his willingness.

And now to establish a foundation from which we will work:

"Now, am I to assume this is the first time either of you have been in couples counseling?" I asked, smiling brightly at both the part fairy and the vampire.

Miss Stackhouse nodded softly and the vampire merely raised an eyebrow. Of course this would be the first and perhaps only time he would permit such a thing. I had seen the doubt and conflict in his stance when he considered whether to allow this therapy. I knew I had only a few sessions of his time, and must make the most of it. I would have to talk quite a bit this session. In future sessions, I would give it over to how the two interacted. His fingertips were tickling the part fairy's neck now and she was shivering and swatting his hand away. He did not relent. A scowl grew on her face but she did not pull away. Mixed messages from the human. Was this part of her allure?

"And how much do the pair of you know about SPTSD? Much?" I looked to both of them, still brightly. They were being quite hospitable and forthcoming thus far.

The part fairy shrugged. "Only what you've told me so far: recurring dreams, fear of the unknown... powerlessness... that sort of thing."

She turned to her vampire and looked up into his eyes. He held her gaze for a moment and it was no longer menacing. There was something soft there--softer than one would expect from a very old vampire, much less a very old vampire schooled in the art of warfare. Yes, very much love. And yet the couple sat far from one another and the part fairy had her arms crossed in front of her and her legs crossed as well, making herself as small and compact as the vampire was large and sprawling.

"I have known vampires," he began softly, still gazing at his beloved, "who have had great wounds from battle and have never recovered. They flew into deep rages that injured themselves and others."

He studied her face all the harder.

I jotted a note. Ah, so the vampire has seen the worst of this sort of trauma: a supernatural creature unable to reign in his bloodlust, and with the strength and power to inflict intense pain on others. His face was placid, inscrutable--a look I'd come to associated with worry in vampires, especially when associated with the suffering of their humans. His fingers massaged her neck and shoulders, and a blush appeared on the part fairy's face.

"Well, the good news is that Miss Stackhouse is unlikely to suffer long term consequences to her trauma," I began with a sunny smile. The pair turned to me, twin expressions of surprise on their faces--though the vampire's was only fleeting. "You see, my dear Miss Stackhouse, Mr. Northman, there are a few kinds of SPTSD: acute, chronic and delayed onset. We can eliminate delayed onset for this current trauma, as it has just occurred, though it is possible that it has triggered older traumas she has kept hidden until now. We will address that in our individual therapy.

"And I believe, since we are catching it early, and Miss Stackhouse showed willingness and a tremendous amount of tenacity by calling me early and establishing our relationship, that we may be able to prevent this from becoming chronic. I would not say this to all my clients, Miss Stackhouse, but you seem uniquely resilient and strong. Th mere fact that you survived Lochlan and Neave's arts at all shows great strength. I believe that strength is in there still, and will be helpful. It's very possible this could be an acute case, one that's relatively well managed and addressed in the next three months."

I twirled my pen, taking in their reactions. The vampire's face was inscrutable, but I did manage to catch a swift wave of relief across his features before he got his emotions under control.

The part fairy was looking at the vampire and then me in shock, and her features seemed to sag with relief. She blew out a long, low breath.

"You mean I might not have any more of these nightmares in three months? I might be able to walk around? Go outside? Go back to work?"

As she spoke, her words became louder and more hurried. The vampire flinched at something in her statement, though I could not tell what. I jotted a note: _Bonded working?_ A tear rolled down her rosy cheek. "Oh, Dr. Gu--I mean, Dr. Eugenides, I can't tell you what that would mean for me! That would be wonderful!"

I nodded and jotted a note.

_No resistance to recovery._

She did not doubt my statement or create reasons that it might not work. She's forward-thinking. She's brave. And she's ready to fight for this. This was stupendous news.

After she spoke, she looked up at her vampire hopefully and his placid expression melted away. He smiled at her, rubbed her back and pulled her close, leaning down to brush his lips across her ear. In a tone I was clearly not intended to hear (many underestimated demon hearing), "My warrior. You will be exquisite again very soon." Then, he leaned down and took her lips in a deep slow kiss that set the part fairy's heart racing. Frankly, it was inappropriate for the setting, but also useful to see the tenderness with which he treated her and her own ardor for him.

Very quickly, though, the part fairy pulled back and pressed her hands against his chest, seeking to correct his behavior. Despite her trauma and the formidable strength of her vampire, this human was not a weak member of this relationship. I wondered at where her strength came from. The fairy blood? I made a note.

"Eric!" she whispered disapprovingly. He pulled back, smirking at her.

After a minute, I cleared my throat and the pair turned back. They moved closer together on the couch and the part fairy turned her body toward him almost imperceptibly.

"Now, this will, of course, require hard work on both of your parts, and you will need to be willing to do things outside your--the human phrase is 'comfort zones'--to make it happen. Can I count on your spirited cooperation? Miss Stackhouse?"

"I'd give just about anything to not feel this way anymore," she said quickly. She rubbed her fingertips over her lips absently.

"And Mr. Northman? Will you permit this? You will have to change your routine and your behavior--not an easy task for a vampire, let along a very old one."

The vampire looked at me skeptically. "I will not agree before hearing terms," he said simply.

I nodded. "Of course. I understand that you did not live this long by taking uneducated risks. However, I ask you to trust me, and to trust your Bonded, and to agree to some small changes. I will not ask you to do anything that will put you or your Bonded at risk, and if I do, you may tell me and refuse. Do you agree to these terms?"

The vampire leveled his gaze at me and held it for a long minute, fingering the hilt of his weapon pointedly. Then, the part fairy crossed her arms again and leaned away from the vampire, sighing in exasperation. He took note and cast a quick glance in her direction. He nodded a half inch.

"Wonderful! You show great trust in your Bonded to take this risk! I commend you, Mr. Northman!"

He merely scowled at me. I jotted a note. _Devoted_.

"Now then, this treatment will be two-fold: On one hand, we will work on Miss Stackhouse's SPTSD. Mr. Northman, you will have a pivotal role to play here as her Bonded and her trusted companion. I would like for you to work with Miss Stackhouse as she begins to try to move outside of this house. Over the next few weeks, I would like you to begin a regimen of slowly moving towards the out of doors. This house has been her safe haven, but she must leave it soon for it to avoid becoming a living prison.

"First, start with merely sitting with her by the window and encouraging her to talk about her feelings being near the outside--what comes up for her, how it might or mightn't remind her of that terrible day, if there are other traumas that are triggered by this. Then, slowly, you will help her open the door and stand with her in the open doorway. I noticed how difficult it was for her to open the door for me today, and I suspect that's a recurring problem. Is that the case, Miss Stackhouse?"

The part fairy nodded, her eyes far away and a humming tension coming from her frame.

I turned back to the vampire.

"Do not take her outside. Merely stand in the open door and allow her to talk about her feelings of being there. You may soothe and comfort her, but I do not wish for your to interrupt her train of thought or attempt to talk her out of her feelings. The feelings will fade as she has the experience of being safe and supported in a place that feels terrifying to her now. I would like for you to do this on both doors.

"Eventually, Miss Stackhouse will become very strong indeed and able to sit on the porch, walk in the yard and take walks out in the country. That will come slowly and she will need your support to get there. Do you agree to this?"

The vampire nodded without hesitation, a small smirk on his face. A very good sign. I smiled at him and nodded back. "Wonderful!" I could see the part fairy becoming agitated but I did not know what it was about, and I had much to get through before out session ended. I smiled at her and nodded, but her expression grew hard. She crossed her arms around herself even harder and cocked her head to the side.

"I of course wish you to continue giving your Bonded your blood, in a fashion that is safe for your both. I do not wish for you to turn her during our work together. It may make her more invincible, but she will be left with permanent unhealed scars if you do so. Do you agree to this?"

"_I'm in the room_," the part fairy spat. "And he won't turn me. We've discussed it. I don't want to be turned."

I turned to the vampire for confirmation. He nodded grimly.

"Very good," I said neutrally. It is of none of my concern if she eventually is turned. Indeed, it may serve her well in the future. But I have had clients so hurt by their powerlessness around supes that they have been turned in the middle of the process, and once they are turned, they are in the throws of bloodlust and trauma--and that combination is quite dangerous, as the vampire apparently already knows well.

However, the fact that she does not wish to be turned, even amidst the frustration and anger and helplessness that is a hallmark of this disorder speaks again to the iron strength within this fairy. Another note.

"I also wish for you, Mr. Northman, to permit your Bonded interactions with all her friends, human and supernatural. She needs to begin to rebuild her support network and to normalize her life again. I recognize that she is yours, but she will be more free to be yours if she is whole. Do you agree to this?"

The response I received surprised me. It came from the small human again.

"He doesn't own me," she spat. "I decide who I see. Why not ask me if I want to start seeing my friends again? That is, if I have any left..."

Anger mixed with grief in the part fairy's eyes and she slumped back against the couch and her vampire's arm. She turned away, refusing to look at either of us, her body becoming more rigid as her breathing grew faster.

I took a moment. This was quite surprising. Most humans relish belonging to their vampires or they would not be in the situation in the first place. This part fairy was quite a different story indeed. Strong and stubborn, unwilling to yield the slightest ground to him. I wondered at how they became bonded in the first place if this were her attitude. I suspected some coercion, and she had suggested as much at our first meeting.

And vampires tended to attract and enjoy those with weak wills. Could these two be unique among supernaturals and humans alike?

I turned back to this very surprising human.

"That is very interesting, Miss Stackhouse. Your fighting spirit even now is a good sign for a full recovery. However," and here I turned back to the vampire, "what we are dealing with is a inter-species relationship with considerably different mores and customs. Despite whatever... agreement you have amongst yourselves, it will be understood in the supernatural community that you are his. Therefore, it is important for him to agree up front that he won't interfere with your relationships with other supes. Do you agree, Mr. Northman."

He looked at me a long moment. "Eric!" said the part fairy, becoming irate. "Don't you dare think of saying no, or so help me I will rescind your invitation right now!"

"Sookie," he said quietly, leveling his menacing gaze at the human. She must not realize how she was humiliating him in front of another supe. Most vampires would have thrown her over his shoulder by now and retreated from the room to "correct" this behavior. But this vampire's reactions were as unexpected as his human's. Had he ever even glamoured her? Another note.

After a long pause, Mr. Northman stared straight into my eyes. "I will not interfere in her relationships with her human or shifter friends." He said it through clenched teeth and like a threat, his hand back on his sword.

After a moment to collect myself, I smiled at the vampire.

"Very good, Mr. Northman. Finally, I wish for you to lay with your Bonded as much as possible. Are you staying here? Do you intend to stay?"

This time, a nod with no hesitation. "I will stay," he said quietly and sat up straighter, taking up more space than he already had. "So long as she does not rescind my invitation." He issued her a sly, sidelong glance.

She caught it, exasperated, but the overwhelming expression on her face was that of genuine joy and excitement. Then she, like her vampire, covered the expression with a mask of disinterest. The two were very much alike. She placed her hand on his thigh and though he did not turn to her, he twitched in a way that told me he was pleased as well.

"We're thinking of making my bedroom light-tight," blurted the part-fairy, a dreaminess to her voice suddenly. This got the vampire's attention and he looked as surprised as she did. He looked down at her, pleasure and surprise dancing across his face quickly. He is quite in love. And yet there is an odd tension. This we will deal with next.

"Now, the other part of our two-pronged attack on this trauma is to work on mending the abandonment wound Miss Stackhouse suffered during her time with the fairy executioners. You are aware of this wound, are you not, Mr. Northman?"

The vampire's mood turned grim quickly and he pulled Miss Stackhouse to him tightly, not entirely with her will. I smiled at him encouragingly. The fact that he was still with us on the couch was a very, very good sign. The fairy, however, looked quite aggrieved just then. Confusion, fear, shame, anger all rolled across her face. She tugged at his heavy arm until he allowed her to sit upright and pulled her knees into her chest again, curling her arms around them. Yes. Quite wounded, quite protective. And quite conflicted about this vampire. This is where we would start.

"Tell me, do you two know much about how SPTSD can affect intimate relationships of all sorts?"

I looked from the vampire to the part fairy and back again. They wore twin expressions of blankness and worry. I nodded. This was to be expected.

"It is very common in SPTSD for the person suffering it to push the people she loves and needs most far away from her. The incidence of humans with SPTSD abjuring or rescinding the invitations of their supernatural companions is extraordinarily high. It is one of the few ways that humans can take power among supernatural creatures who may determine whether they live or die. It is quite a helpless position to be in, and those actions can feel very liberating and empowering in the moment. But they insure more suffering in the long run."

The part fairy placed her cheek on her knees, turning away from the vampire's gaze and my own. I thought I saw a tear in her eye but she never shed it. She was fighting hard to remain in control of her emotions.

"Another very common effect of SPTSD--or any PTSD, really--is that the sexual or romantic relationship in their lives suffer. They either stop having sex or they grow distant from their partners. There is also a great incidence, among blood-bonded couples such as yourself, of the bond being injured or even severed completely. Does any of this seem applicable to your situation?"

The part fairy was the first to speak. She was still looking away.

"I sent everyone away," she said, barely a whisper. She shuddered against the pain. Also very common. "I did rescind his invitation." She looked up at her vampire with regret in her eyes. "I... I didn't know what else to do. I think I told you that."

I nodded. I wanted her to tell her vampire how it had affected her. There was no telling how much or how little she has shared with him before now. The vampire seemed unmoved, so she must have indeed told him just that.

"And the blood bond? Have you felt it recently?"

"The bond is wounded, doctor," said the vampire, leaning forward. Interesting. This is the first time he has seemed so engaged in this conversation. He must miss the bond very much. "I haven't been able to sense anything but a life force since the attack, with the exception of one night a few days ago. That is why," and here he cast a sidelong glance at his bonded, that mask of blank worry on his face, "I did not know she was suffering, why I stayed away so long. I could not feel her. I did not know."

He looked to his Bonded with such an expression of longing that I thought this very old vampire might actually weep. He placed a hand on her neck, stroking again.

The part fairy, meanwhile, seemed confused, battling with herself. She was rigid but seemed to welcome his comfort at the same time. Mixed message. Another note.

"And how do you feel about the bond, Miss Stackhouse?"

She was slow to respond, but when she did, she did so haltingly and with some regret. I could not tell if the regret was for contradicting her Bonded or grief or something else entirely.

"I haven't been in my right mind for a while," she started. "I... I didn't know the bond wasn't there. I have had so many emotions, I thought maybe some of them were his, but I didn't know. I don't know how it works."

Ah. This is quite an oversight by her vampire, something common among the very old. They are used to taking what they want and not considering the feelings of their human companions. And if Miss Stackhouse's willfulness were a common behavior and not a result of the SPTSD, it would stand to reason it would be the only way he could get her to spend time with him. But I still didn't understand why he wouldn't simply glamour her.

"Mr. Northman, am I to understand that you have not explained the mechanics of the bond to your Bonded?"

He merely glared at me and then pulled Miss Stackhouse close. Very afraid, this vampire, of losing his beloved. He nodded.

"Would you explain it now, please?"

He turned to her, brushing his fingers through her hair. "Sookie," he looked her in the eyes. "A blood bond does not allow me to influence your decisions. You have free will. It merely means that I am always aware of you and you are always aware of me, and that we can sense one another's feelings. In a sense, we are one. It is true that I can use the bond to send you comfort and strength, as I did in Rhodes, if you recall. But I cannot make you feel anything you do not already possess. You already are strong. So the strength I sent merely built on your own."

"Then why did I always want to be near you? Why do I need you here even now? Isn't that the bond?"

He looked down and then in her eyes intently.

"It is true that my blood longs to be near me, as your blood longs to be near you. We will always want to be near one another, Sookie. That is the price of the bond."

She squeezed her arms around herself and shivered. Her energy was waning. We must move this along.

"What is the history of this bond? Miss Stackhouse, I believe you told me that he 'tricked you into it?' How is that?"

And so the vampire in his clipped, evasive sentences, and the human in her longer, more colorful ones, painted a picture of a blood bond forged of coercion and passion: An untruth to suck a bullet from a vampire's skin (Miss Stackhouse must indeed have been quite naive of the vampire world, and the vampire used it to his advantage); a feeding on vampire blood to heal a staking (naive, perhaps, but Miss Stackhouse is clearly a survivor and fearless); a period of consensual blood exchange and the blossoming of a love bond; and, finally, a cementing of a blood bond in a political moment, when Miss Stackhouse had to choose between a vampire whose blood she'd already had and a vampire who was foreign and seemed threatening.

I also learned in the course of this explanation how the human came to know the vampire: She is a telepath, quite a rare breed, indeed.

Well, well, _well_, I thought. She is much more than human, indeed.

I have known only three in my long existence and each have carried some fairy blood in them and been brave and vicious to those who cross them. Miss Stackhouse seemed quite the same.

"So you are something of a supe yourself, Miss Stackhouse."

"I'm human," she said. _Telepath--Perhaps denial?_ I wrote on my pad.

Suddenly their relationship began clicking into place. The vampire's fascination with this not-quite-human, his willingness to suffer her impertinence, the human's rigidity and stubbornness, though she had told me that he was the only one who made her feel safe, that she was starting to fall in love with him. They must be a formidable pair.

"Tell me, do you have other powers? Powers that may provide you with more leverage?"

"I... I don't think so?" She was searching her mind, studying her knees and then looked up at her vampire, who was staring at her with such... amusement?... in his eyes. "Oh! That's right. I can't be glamoured."

She turned back to me and the smallest of smiles spread across her face.

Aha. That was the missing piece of the puzzle. He couldn't exert control over her as he did other humans. What a relief that might be to a being bored by centuries of pliable humans. I blotted myself with my handkerchief, wicking away the moisture gathering at my neck and my lip. It would be delightful to open the front door, or a window--it was almost cool enough outside for me--but I knew that would not be possible today.

I wanted to explain to the couple that the tensions in their relationship were the natural outgrowth of their power positions--he as a very old vampire and a warrior; she as a telepath and impervious to mind control so heavily relied upon by the supernatural community. That even without the SPTSD this would be a relationship of what human marriage and family therapists call "big personalities," rife with conflicts--conflicts upon which they both thrived. I doubted if the vampire would want a human who could not defend herself. I doubted the telepath would have much patience for beings of whom she could predict their behavior. She needed him to be strong and vice versa. This SPTSD must be very disturbing to them both.

But I would save that for a future session. For now, we needed to establish some rules around the bond if it were to be saved.

"This is very interesting, Miss Stackhouse. How do you feel about the blood bond?"

"It wasn't my choice," she said bitterly. "I get the impression that most bonded humans are in thrall to their vampires and have to do whatever they want. That's the right word, right? 'Thrall?' I don't have to. Right, Eric?"

She looked up to him and placed her hand on his knee. Indeed. She enjoys her sense of control.

He ran his hands through her hair and tossed it over her shoulder. He looked at her softly but then turned a hard gaze to me. His smile was rueful. "She does not yield to me."

"Tell me, Mr. Northman, do you enjoy that about your Bonded?"

His hand flexed on her arm, curling into a fist and then releasing. He leveled his gaze at me, trying to press his will into mine. Surely he must know that does not work with demons, but his loss of control was palpable, so I did not seek to correct it.

"I enjoy her strength and her spirit," he said, evading the question. "I enjoy her sense of adventure. And... it is a great victory when she chooses to come to me on her own."

He leaned back, smug. Miss Stackhouse made a gesture common among humans. She rolled her eyes.

"And has she chosen to come to you?"

"On occassion." He said briefly.

Miss Stackhouse erupted in laughter, her hand still on his knee, now cuddled close. She turned and smiled at him. "When did I do _that_?"

The vampire's face went blank as he looked at her. Was he stunned? I was impressed by the half-fairy's fearlessness. Of course she was fearless. She was not in his sway and did not intend to be.

"You came to my bar, lover," he said quietly, in a warning tone. "You came and we talked and I told you of my human life. You do not recall this?"

She pulled back and looked at him, searching his face, her grip tighter on the vampire's leg. Then she turned back to me and fell back against the couch and the vampire's arm.

"Well," she started dismissively. "That was the bond that made me do that."

I jotted a note.

"So you do not enjoy your bond with your vampire, Miss Stackhouse? You sound... what is the human phrase? 'Put out' by it."

Now she removed her hand from her vampire and made to nudge away from him. Strong, this one. So much of a fighter that she was fighting what was clearly her heart's desire.

"There are far worse vampires to be bonded to," she said, gazing up at her vampire. "It's just that ever since it happened, I can't tell what feelings are mine and which are his. It's bad enough that I get other people's unwanted thoughts in my head all the time. Now I have his unwanted feelings inside me, too. I can't tell whether it's what he wants or whether it's what I want anymore. I can't tell if he's trying to control me with the bond."

"And that he has just explained that he can't control you with the bond... does that change how you feel?" I asked, twirling my pen between my fingers.

She shrugged. "It should, I guess. I don't know. I can't stop feeling... hurt, I guess? It's all been so much. And even though he explained where he was that night and why he hasn't been here for the last month, there's something in me that can't let it go. It feels awful--and I am awfully grateful to him... but I'm... I don't know--frozen, I guess."

She looked up at her vampire, apology and anger and distrust in her eyes. And yet deep need. She leaned in close and took a deep breath of her vampire. The vampire looked at her blankly.

"Miss Stackhouse, Mr. Northman, I want to assure you that that is quite common in these sorts of cases," I began. "You have had a deep wound, and even if your vampire did everything within his considerable power to free you--indeed, even if he went to war for you--the wound is still there. It will take time to heal. That is why I want your vampire to stay. Making a room light-tight may facilitate this. Waking with your vampire, and he with you, will renew your bond, figuratively if not literally. It is only by experiencing your vampire that you will be able to heal that wound."

I smiled softly and sympathetically at the couple. This was a long road, but one for which I was sure they were both well suited.

"If I may," I continued, aware that time was running low. "I would like to propose an activity for the both of you, that may help Miss Stackhouse understand the bond and discover which feelings are hers and which are not. Would you be open to something along these lines?"

I looked first at the vampire, knowing it was his approval I would need first. The telepath seemed relieved, if the relaxing of her shoulders were any indication. He glared at me darkly, that blank expression of worry on his face again. Hesitantly, he raised an eyebrow.

"Very good. Then I propose an exercise for the two of you. Mr. Northman, do you know how to close down the bond?"

"You can close down the bond?" said the telepath, shocked, looking at her vampire. "Can I close it, too?"

He looked at me, displeased, and then back to her. "Yes, you can. I can teach you."

"This is where I'd like our activity to begin," I interrupted. "I would like us to work on opening the bond, but only within the safety of these sessions. The rest of the time, I would like for you to keep the bond closed if it should open spontaneously, Mr. Northman. Will you agree to that?"

He scowled at me and hissed again. He loved the bond. He had worked hard to create it. The vampire's hand was back on his sword, fingering lightly the filigree there. The telepath, meanwhile, was sitting up straighter, leaning into her vampire with her hand on his stomach.

"Would this please you, my lover?" he asked, that blank look of anguish on his face.

"Oh, yes, Eric," she said quickly. "I think it would."

He turned to me, stone faced, and nodded.

"And in return, Miss Stackhouse, I would like for you to promise that you will not rescind his invitation during this time. You must be around him so you can experience what you actually feel for the vampire. Will you agree to this?"

She bit her lip and nodded. The vampire now was smiling quite broadly. Quite openly.

"And if I may ask, how have you courted her so far?"

The vampire looked at me blankly. "I am here," he said simply.

"Have there been dates?"

"I have provided for her. I have given her what she has allowed me," he said, finally, a slight tone of displeasure in his voice. "I am here."

"That is very good, Mr. Northman. By vampire standards, you are doing well by your Bonded. However, if you would like to restore a healthy heart bond with your Bonded, you may want to engage in some human courting rituals. Dates, small gifts. There are many places to find out more. Or you may simply wish to ask your Bonded what she prefers. Here is a copy of a newspaper column that deals with this very issue. I like to give it to my vampire clients with human Bondeds. Consider it."

I looked at my watch. Only a few minutes left in this quite eventful session. I gathered my notebook and tidied my supplies.

"I'm terribly sorry. I must go. Let us resume this discussion next Friday? Will that be acceptable to you both? And Miss Stackhouse, I will see you on Monday, and we can talk more then."

I stood and enjoyed the stretch in all my bones. I bowed deeply to the couple. "Until then, it has been a pleasure."

I smiled and walked out the door, a feeling of serene emptiness settling over me. It was a lovely balmy night, and I loosened my collar to allow the warm air to swirl around me. As I walked toward my car, I heard a rumbling from the house.

A voice I never heard growled, _"Dear Abby!?"_


	13. Chapter 13: Dear Abby

**A/N: **Thanks for your patience with this next installment. It's extra long, to hopefully make up for not posting twice last week. I'm on a busy work period, lots of deadlines, and so I'll probably be updating more slowly for a bit.

Tell me if you think the chapters are getting too long. I don't want it to feel arduous to get through. I want you looking forward to these updates!

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Disclaimer:** I don't own these characters, except Dr. Gumby. They belong to Charlaine Harris.

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**Chapter 13: Dear Abby**

**Sookie's POV**

Tears were coming from my eyes, and for a miracle they weren't of the sad-sap variety.

Eric's expression when he realized that paper Dr. Gumby left for him was a Dear Abby column was priceless. I wished I had a photo of it to keep in my wallet and refer to any time I started feeling light life was getting just a little too serious. I'd had to climb on his lap and remind him that the doc didn't know who he was once he was outside the house to keep him from grabbing that sword and heading out after the doctor. I was proud of myself, I thought, still wiping tears from my eyes. I'd saved a life tonight, and I wasn't even at risk of getting beaten up.

Ah. I needed that laugh. I took a deep breath and steadied myself, but no. The laughter just kept coming. But you could hardly blame me. That was one heck of a session. Sheesh. When Dr. Gumby wants to cover a lot of ground, he wants to cover _a lot_ of ground.

I was ready for something light.

So I thought I'd toy with Eric some more. He scowled at me when I tried to stifle another giggle and I couldn't help it. I reached right over to him to grab that paper out of his hand. Oh, if only Pam knew. I couldn't wait to hear what she would say.

I should have known.

Despite the fact that he didn't move a muscle until my hand was practically on the paper, it was out of my grasp the second I thought I'd seized it. Damn vampire speed. I fell forward in surprise and landed back against the arm of the sofa. I nearly toppled off.

"Oof."

I looked up at him. Now Eric was laughing, crumpling the paper in to a tight ball. He was holding it just out of my reach, staring into the fireplace. His beautiful mouth was a thin line and only twitched occasionally with the threat of laughter.

"Come on, Eric," I said, purring up against him. "Let me read it. I want to see what Dear Abby thinks is the right way is to woo a human. I can give you pointers, too, if you want them."

So I couldn't resist jabbing him a little, sue me. The idea of him taking pointers on anything from me made me want to laugh even more, but I held it in. He was getting that lethal look on his face.

He cast his eyes down at me and then back at the fireplace. He moved the ball of paper toward me and when I reached for it, he pulled it away again, leaning back and throwing it in the air and catching it before I righted myself. He still wasn't looking at me but now the sides of his mouth were curled up just a little.

I placed my hand on his stomach and pushed myself upright. He raised an eyebrow at me. Oh, it was _on_.

"Eric," I said. I did my best to stare him down, and I caught his eyes with my own. Oh wow. His eyes were deep blue and full of challenge. I narrowed my gaze at him and gave as good as I got.

I traced the fingers of one hand down his stomach until I reached the lip of his shirt. I held his eyes and reached under his shirt, running my fingers up the hard planes of his stomach to his chest. I felt him shudder but his eyes never left mine, and neither did the challenge in his eyes.

"Sookie," he said coolly and raised the other eyebrow, too.

I found his nipple with my fingers and squeezed it between my index and middle fingers, tugging sharply.

I could feel my face growing flush, and heard him growl. I leaned in and put my mouth a hair's breath from his own and said, "Let's see what Dear Abby has to say."

With my hand still on his nipple, I reached the other up as fast as I could for the paper in his outstretched hand. But just like that, it was gone and I fell against his chest.

Eric let out a loud laugh, right in my face.

I scowled and pressed myself against him, rubbing just a little. That quieted him right up. His arms went around me--even the one holding the paper--and he pulled me close.

"You must be feeling better," he whispered in my ear, and I could feel that his fangs were extended just a little by the way they tickled my earlobe. "Your creativity is coming back."

I shivered and pressed my ear against his cool mouth. But I wasn't willing to give up yet. I might be creative, but I'm also determined.

I slipped off his lap and knelt between his legs, which he splayed out in front of him like he owned the place. I smiled to myself. He might as well be sitting in this throne at Fangtasia for the way he was carrying on.

"The doctor says I'm going to get better," I said, nuzzling my face into his belly. I felt a thrill, a giddiness at the prospect, and looked up at him. He felt so good against my cheek and I felt his muscles ripple a little. He smirked and nodded. I let my hands roam up under his shirt and both found his nipples and twisted a little. He slumped down in his seat, bringing his now burgeoning (as my romance novels would call it) gracious plenty closer to my bosoms.

I closed the distance and pressed them against him and heard him growl.

"My lover," he said, and his hands flew to my face, caressing my hair and my face. I turned my face toward his palm and placed my hand against it, pressing it into me.

And then as quick as I could, I plucked the paper from his hand and fell back on my knees, away from him, curling into a ball and clutching it to me. I was sure he was going to pounce on me, but he didn't.

I didn't dare move because I knew the second I opened myself for attack, I was going to get it.

I kind of wanted it.

Instead, all I heard was him chuckling to himself, and the creak of the sofa as he stood.

"You are so much trouble, Sookie," he drawled as I heard him retreat to the kitchen at the back of the house.

When I was sure he was gone, I uncurled a little and started smoothing the paper out on the floor.

I had just read, "DEAR ABBY," when I felt something... hovering... over me. I looked up and for a split second, I saw Eric hanging there in the air, a predatory look in his eyes and a smirk on his lips.

And then he was on me, and the paper was gone and his hands pinned mine down to the floor. He pressed his knee between mine and settled between my legs, growling and chuckling at once.

"My little warrior," he said between kisses. I felt his fangs on my lower lip and couldn't breathe right. "You are so adorable when you're plotting. I may let you win more often."

I glared at him and kicked against his weight, but that only brought his leg down harder between my legs and made me gasp. Eric chuckled and kissed along my jawline and to my ear.

"You have excellent defensive instincts. But you must always be prepared for ambush."

I heaved against him, half wanting him to let me go and half just wanting to feel him.

"You cheat," I panted as his mouth found my neck. I craned up to offer it to him without thinking. "You flew."

He chuckled against my neck and my chest and I felt his excitement heavy on my leg. He always did like a fight, even if it wasn't much of one.

"It is not cheating if it comes naturally to me," he said coolly, and held my arms more tightly. He was kissing and nipping his way down my neck, enjoying my helpless state, no doubt, when a told panic shot through me.

I couldn't explain it, even now, but it was like the room fell away and my body remembered another time I couldn't move my arms--remembered my hands numb and my wrists pinched and suddenly my gasps for breath weren't pleasant. My vision clouded with tears and I didn't know where I was anymore.

I felt cold and clammy. I was struggling and writhing and kicking against him, and all I could hear was... laughter.

He was laughing at me. _They_ were laughing at me. Oh. Oh god. I have to... I have to get away. I have to get loose! I turned my head to the side and my body tensed.

"No!" I sobbed. "They'll be... here. They'll... they'll kill you."

Even to my own ears I didn't sound convincing. I knew in that moment that they would kill me. The hopelessness sank into me and congealed in my belly and I lost the will to fight. The pressure on my thighs and between them became too much, I knew they were cutting and bitting again. I felt the sting and burn of flesh torn away, and my leg twitched in protest. My breathing became heavy, and it was wet with something--blood I was sure. I was bleeding inside. I just knew it. And I knew no one was coming for me.

"No," I sobbed, but I didn't try. I couldn't even hit. My arms had lost all feeling. All the energy went right out of me. I was shivering, and everything became dim.

_This is what it feels like to die_, I thought absently as everything went dark.

**Eric's POV**

I knew the moment she lost consciousness. One moment, she was moaning in pleasure and wiggling seductively under me and the next I felt her arms tense and then she started babbling about killing and I knew immediately that she was in the grips of her devil again.

I released her just at that moment but it showed no effect. I immediately recognized my error. It had been so long since I had been ambushed bodily that I had forgotten how fresh it still was for her. I growled to myself about my miscalculation and looked in horror as she did not relax or move her arms. She kept them pinned there herself, as if by some dark magic. I wondered in that moment if the fairies' dark arts hadn't had their intended effect after all, if they weren't still working her even now. I would have to consult Dr. Ludwig about whether there were still a spell on her.

And then her tensed body went slack and she was lost to my world. Only that I could hear her heart beating and shallow breaths did I restrain myself from doing something drastic. As it was, I was tempted to tear open my veins and feed her my blood. Would that undo the magic? I wondered. It hadn't yet.

Only after I had watched her for an hour, stroking her, did I feel comfortable leaving her side for a few minutes. I busied myself setting a fire in the fireplace and then I retreated to what was swiftly becoming my bedroom (to my chagrin)--far enough from Sookie's ears but not so far that I couldn't hear her and be with her instantly should she need me. I retrieved my phone from my bag.

I spoke to Dr. Ludwig, and she told me nothing different than what the demon himself had said. She'd been referring clients to him for centuries, and none had met a rapid end as a result of their work. All expressed pleasure at the results, if not at the methods. I had nodded into the phone and snapped it closed.

After emailing my attorney, I unfurled the despicable photocopy:

_DEAR ABBY: In my 350 years vampire I have never met a more frustrating human than this woman I have claimed. I find myself unable to resist her charms and also unable to please her with my behavior. She does not wish to be released from me, but she also has the temerity to complain that I am not romantic. She wants me to court her. I do not understand this term. _

_I have done more for her than any other human companion I have ever had: I have offered to move her into my daytime resting place. I have given her a car and all the designer clothes she could desire. She no longer need work. And while she says she appreciates it, she always tells me that this does not count as wooing. What could be more courtly than accounting for her every need? She tells me she wants more of my time, but honestly, I am at a loss for how to please this perplexing woman. What is the difference between wooing her and what I have done? Why does it not please her when it has pleased others? What say you?_

_BE STILL MY HEART, Duluth, MN_

_DEAR STILL: Be glad she's not impressed by your fancy car and expensive gifts. It means she thinks of you as her beau--not her bank card. _

_Now, let's help you woo this lady who had captured your still heart. The first thing to understand is that you and your lady friend think of relationships differently. Vampires, as a rule, are pragmatic: When you think of caring, you think big. You think nice cars and fancy jewelry. But human women--human women who aren't golddiggers or fang-diggers--are romantics, and romantics treasure the small things. Hand written notes, flowers you picked yourself, and, most of all, your time and attention, are what make a woman feel cherished. It's not that you can't provide your lady with a car and jewelry. It's just that it comes later--_after_ you've showered her with your affection in small ways. _

_In other words, you're used to going at vampire speed, but to woo a woman, you must slow down. _

_Here's what you do:_

_-- Leave the luxe at home: To you, a car is an appropriate first-date gift. To her, it's a signal that you think of her as someone who can be bought. A quality woman will bristle at such a gesture. Try something small. Pick flowers from her garden and bring her a bouquet. The fact that you took the time to gather them for her will mean more to her than any money you could spend._

_--Stay home: It may be nothing to you to travel to one of the luxurious hotels catering to vampires around the world, but to her, that's a big step. If you're newly dating, start small and stick close to home. Take her to the movies. Take her dancing. Squire her around town. Show everyone you're proud to have her on your arm._

_--Think of the unexpected: Everyone knows vampires have plenty of money to lavish on their human companions. That takes no real effort. What does take effort is to notice the things she loves and surround her with them._

_--Date date date: It may take months for a woman to feel comfortable enough moving in with you. In the meantime, date her, meet her friends. Become a normal part of her life so she can feel comfortable having her life while having you in it._

_--Observe human rituals: Vampires are not often attuned to human holidays, aside from Halloween. But to win your lady's heart, pay attention to the calendar: Her birthday, Christmas, and especially Valentine's Day are all important to remember and honor. Do you know when they are? And, though I know there are some vampire rituals that can bind humans to vampires more permanently than any human ceremony, don't poo-poo human marriage rituals. When you're ready, such a ceremony may be very important to your human lady's warm-blooded heart._

_If she's a quality woman--and it sounds like she is--she'll be putty in your cold hands. The fact that you are willing to ask such a question means you're a good man and a good vampire._

_ABBY_

I snarled. Drivel. How could Pam read this garbage? Start small. Become part of her life. Avoid gifts! Ridiculous.

Though I had to admit: This sounded like my Sookie.

I folded the paper and placed it in my back pocket.

I found myself lost in thought as I wandered into Sookie's bedroom and began to appraise it. I strode to her bedside and began opening drawers, seeking proof. In the first, I found the note I had given her the day I arrived here this week. It seemed water-marked somehow. I sniffed it. Her tears. It had made her cry? Why did she keep it? I moved to her dresser. In the top drawer, behind her panties, I found the cards that accompanied her negligee, her coat and the gravel in her driveway.

Hmmm.

In her closet I found a box filled with little items that seemed unrelated: The brochure from her hotel stay in Dallas. Her airline tickets to Dallas and to Rhodes. A menu. A shred of ice blue satin. The invitation to Dracula's birthday. A cocktail napkin from Josephine's and one from Hair of the Dog. A wrap. Last year's Men of Fangtasia calendar. A photo of she and Compton in some church. Several hospital bracelets. A receipt for many items from a Super Walmart. An LSA sweatshirt.

The last surprised me. I picked it up and smelled it. I recognized the scent. It was mine.

And under it all, a small envelope. I opened it. It contained a note and when I opened it, a photo slid out. I almost laughed, but I didn't want to wake her. It was the photo of myself from the calendar shoot, holding my hand out to her. It was the card I'd given her when I sought to convince her to yield to me. This pleased me.

I sat on her bed and rested my face in my hands. I felt again as I had that moment last year when I had remembered every caress, peel of laughter and moment of kindness that had passed between Sookie and I when I was cursed.

I ignored the other items in the box and focused on this: This strong, willful girl was sentimental about me. I had had an effect on her. I growled to myself in victory. For a moment I reveled in Sookie's scent all around me and my fangs came down completely.

Then I pulled the paper out and looked at it again. Fangdiggers. I had known many. I thought of her worthless friend Tara, how she had accepted cars and cash and other gifts from that vile vampire Franklin Mott, and been surprised when he had passed her on to Mickey like so much cattle. I glanced back at the hateful column. I recalled the girl's broken body on the rain drenched floor, and I could not resist a smile.

That night, Sookie told me what we had been to each other during those missing days.

_We had sex in every position I could imagine, and some I couldn't. We had sex in every room in my house, and we had sex outdoors. You told me it was the best you ever had.... You offered to give up your position as sheriff and come live with me. And get a job._

A low rumbling of laughter shook my chest. She had been so proud when she had said it, so superior. She had loved having some power over me. I shook my head. If she only knew how much power she possessed...

Then I grew grave. Power, indeed. Power enough to shame me in front of the demon this night, to rescind our bond if not my invitation. My Sookie.

Was she even _my_ Sookie?

Though I would not acknowledge such doubt to any other creature, tonight's meeting with the demon therapist disturbed me greatly. She hated out bond--the bond I had worked so hard to nurture. She wished it cut down and I wondered if she wished it destroyed forever. Would she rather be rid of me for good? No. I would not allow the thought. I looked in the box and at my photo.

She is mine and she will be mine.

At least I held some ground this night: She could not rescind my invitation during our time together and I doubted she would threaten it anymore, since I knew it to be an idle threat. All I had to do to achieve it was give up the bond I'd crafted so carefully. The whole experience had been distasteful. The rejection cut through me like a stake and I growled lowly in my chest.

_There are worse vampires to be bonded to._ Indeed, I thought with disgust, images of Mickey, wet with rain, shaking Tara like a drained body, flashing through my mind. I shook my head.

_Don't you dare think of saying no or so help me I will rescind your invitation right now. _In front of the demon, no less. I wondered at my weakness for this human. At one point, I could have killed her and been free of this obsession, but I was sure now that moment had now passed.

The look of rage in her eyes had been so intense when she had threatened my access to her home. She has no fear, I marveled again. She is still so naive about my world. I wondered when she would understand, and when she did, if she would stay. I rubbed my hand over my chin and flipped open my phone.

"Fangtasia, the bar with bite." My child's tone dripped with disinterest. I was already predisposed to dark temper and this did nothing to aid my mood. I had admonished her to imbue her greeting with a bit of venom countless times.

"Now that's no way to greet the vermin," I said threateningly into the receiver. This night I would take no impertinence from my child. It was bad enough to suffer it at the hand of my Bonded.

"Master. How is our favorite telepath?"

"Asleep," I said shortly. "By dawn I expect to have all the columns you have on wooing humans and human-vampire relations in my inbox. Scan them if you must, but you may also include links."

"Well it's about time," she deadpanned. "Am I--"

"I'm warning you, Pam," I growled.

"Of course Master."

"And send a list of all important human holidays. Do we have a record of Sookie's birthday?"

"I will have to check, Master, but I don't expect so."

I nodded. I pulled her Men of Fangtasia calendar out of the box and flipped through it. Ah, there it is. March 30, marked in her jagged handwriting.

"Nevermind. Have there been any messages? Any contact by de Castro or Madden? Sandy?"

"Of course not, Master," she said. "I would have called immediately, as you requested."

"Very good. Good night Pam."

"Oh and Master?"

"Yes?"

"Dear Abby says you should be 'open and honest' with your paramour--that's what humans call their bondeds. Vampires often err on the side of secrecy, but she says it wins a human's heart faster when they feel you are as open with them as they are with you. Though of course, in our Sookie's case, that's not very open."

I scowled at the phone.

"I will have those columns for you by dawn, Master. Give her a squeeze for me," she purred.

I hung up.

***

Studying Sookie's limp frame, I covered her with my robe and then propped her head on that disgusting afghan. I had planned to replace it, perhaps with something cashmere since she enjoyed my robe so much, but it appeared now I would be forced to wait. Wooing rituals, indeed. I petted her temple, attempting to comfort her.

I chuckled sardonically.

"Brynhildr," I whispered in my first tongue. "Valkyrie, shieldmaiden." I sat next to her sleeping form, playing with her hair restrained in its high ponytail. It seemed impossible that the task of winning my Sookie should become rockier, but I feared it just had.

In my first tongue, I recited a poem from my human life:

_From sunrise to sundown no paragon had she._

_All boundless as her beauty was her strength peerless too,_

_An evil plight hung o'er the knight who dared her love to woo._

_For he must try three bouts with her; the whirling spear to fling;_

_To pitch the massive stone; and then to follow with a spring;_

_And should he beat in every feat his wooing well has sped,_

_But he who fails must lose his love, and likewise lose his head._

**Sookie's POV**

My side felt warm, almost hot, and dry. I could hear my own breathing and some kind or crackling, but that was all. I opened and closed my mouth carefully. It felt sticky and dry. I turned my head and tested my neck. It would be bruised from strangling.

It didn't hurt. I took a deep breath. It was smoky and warm and smelled like Gran's biscuits and something dry and cool and delicious. I curled toward the warmth instinctively and felt a whisper of a hand over my cheek.

A voice said something in a language I didn't now.

I froze, and couldn't breathe. The voice came from behind me and suddenly I felt enveloped in a cool, strong embrace. I didn't realize I was shivering until I felt his arms on me and they helped still me. I opened my eyes and they came into focus on my fireplace. I recognized the soot-covered red bricks at the top and the chipped tile from when Jason and I had wrestled as kids. I looked down and my afghan was curled under my head as a pillow. I slowly understood where I was. The fire warmed my face and dried my tears almost as soon as they dripped from my eyes.

"Oh thank goodness," I sighed. "Praise the lord."

I was still shivering, and I pulled the blanket on top of me tighter against my mouth. It was so soft. I looked down and realized it wasn't a blanket at all, but Eric's soft white robe.

And then the evening came back to me: The doctor's visit. I might get better fast. I might not have these fits much longer. It had been music to my ears and I almost smiled at the memory. Eric gave permission (ha!) for my friends to visit, if I had any left. Eric was to help me go... outside. A tremor of fear added to the shivers I was already feeling. He was to "lay with me" as often as possible. Oh my god, I'd said I wanted to light-tight a room. In front of the doctor! And I'd been excited! I'd said there were worse vampires to be bonded to. I groaned to myself. Worse indeed. Here he'd lit a fire and was taking care of me and I treated him like the lesser of two evils. Absently I remembered that he had been in that moment. He'd saved me and suckered me all at once.

And then I remembered the worst part. We'd been teasing each other, having a playful moment for once, and I'd fallen out. Again. Lord have mercy but I was a _mess_! Just call me Fainting Fanny. I thought back shakily: I'd collapsed just about every night since he'd been here. I'd screamed at him last night. I'd yelled at him tonight in front of Dr. Gumby. And then when he was teasing me, when we were being playful and I was having a moment of peace, I'd gone and had another attack and passed out. Well_ hell_.

A cold terror shot through me and I knew it in my bones, as a cold, hard truth. I was too much trouble. He would leave. He'd get tired of my terrors and my anger--no matter how justified--and he'd pack away this lovely robe and his big suitcase and that stupid sword, and he'd never come back. I'd lose him. I was in a million emotional pieces all over again.

I couldn't have that. I had to do something.

I made to turn to him. I had to apologize. I had to do something to show him that I wanted him here. The thought was irrational and I knew it. And I knew when I was healthy again, I'd regret it, but just now it seemed like if I lost him I would disappear, and I had enough drive to live that I couldn't accept that.

"Be still, lover," he said, kissing my shoulder. I shrank away from his kisses, confused. "You've had a shock."

"Please, Eric," I whispered, shaking. I was crying again and I turned my face toward him, offering him my tears, offering anything so I could keep him, just a while longer. "Please. I need you." _Please don't leave._ I couldn't say it. My pride wouldn't allow it. I sighed and a shiver racked my body.

He opened his arms and allowed me to turn into his chest, tangling my legs with his to get as close as possible. I felt him on every inch of me, even through the robe, and I felt my lungs catching. I couldn't get enough air. I couldn't get enough of him. I reached my arms around him and clinched tightly, just shaking and shivering and needing, needing.

"Hold me close," I mouthed, but I knew he could hear me. I rubbed my face on his chest and knew I'd just ruined another of his shirts. I felt his chest expand as he breathed in my scent, rubbing his hands in long strokes down my back and into my hair. Safe, safe, safe, I thought over and over. It was calming. I was so sorry for what I had done to him.

He shushed me, smoothing my hair, and then, out of nowhere, he began speaking. I eased into the feel of his chest rumbling soothingly against my ear. This closeness, feeling his voice vibrate through me, I knew he was here, and would listen to anything to keep hearing it.

But what he said shocked the hell out of me.

"When I'd been vampire about 50 years, I was ambushed by a rival nest of vampires," Eric whispered, stroking my exposed neck with his cool fingertips. "At that time, most vampires were warriors, like me. We needed to be. It was a very different time for our kind. We went to ground every day and roamed the dark woods, dirty and starving."

The thought of Eric ever hiding and hunting through the woods shocked me. I couldn't imagine him without his Corvette and cocky swagger.

"There were fewer people then and the vampires that survived were ruthless. They--we--thought nothing of destroying our own kind to secure a meal for the night. I knew many food-weak vampires then.

"I was still with my maker, and had been assigned to bring meals back, one for each of us," he said softly, kissing my hair. I bristled. I knew what he meant. McPeople. Except it was no happy meal, not for the humans at least. I felt the bile rise in my throat and I tensed to hold it down. "We thought of them only as food, Sookie. At the time, vampires were very different kinds of creatures, and so was our relationship with humans. There was no room for any thoughts or feelings other than survival. Every night ran the very real risk of being my final.

"The men I came upon that night were rogues, thieves who were themselves hiding in the wood waiting for travelers they could rob and kill, perhaps kidnap for ransom. I flew down on them from the trees and carried them quickly toward my maker's nest, the urge to please him uncontrollable and my hunger great.

"I was nearly back to our nest, a spot in a cave, when I felt the lash of silver on my skin for the first time." I flinched at the image of my big, strong Viking falling to earth, feeling that pain. I'd seen those red marks criss-crossing his face before. I'd seen what it had done to Bill, and I knew it was nothing to take lightly. But Eric just stroked my back soothingly and said all this coolly, like he was reporting the weather. "I was so close to the nest that I'd let down my guard, ceased my usual surveillance, and I found myself in searing pain and fallen to the ground.

"The men I'd captured were quickly taken from me. My hunger and rage were great, but they were no match for the five vampires that had taken me. They were ancient and very very strong. They acted on a code of behavior even more brutal than my own. They were from a time when vampires were nothing but scavengers. They'd made an existence for themselves not out of hunting their food but of hunting the young who procured it--and then torturing those vampire and taking their food. They strapped me to a boulder and wrapped me with silver and forced me to watch as they fed from those men. They stabbed me with silver tipped swords, waiting for the wounds to close before doing it again."

It was almost too much to hear. The memory of silver tipped teeth made me shake again and I began sobbing. I shook my head into Eric's big, cool chest. I had the irrational desire to throw my ponytail to the side and offer him my neck, as if that could make up for that centuries-old hunger.

"I heard them deciding whether to leave me strapped to the rock to meet the sun," Eric continued softly, brushing his lips against my temple, calming me. "I had never felt so helpless, Sookie. Not in my human life and not since becoming vampire. My survival depended completely upon them. My maker did not come for me. He was cruel. I have told you of him, yes?"

I nodded.

"When the men had left and I was yet strapped to that rock, and dawn was approaching, my maker finally arrived. Using his cloak to protect his hands, he removed the silver from me and carried me to the cave, where I lay useless for several nights, waiting for the silver to leave my system. All that time, my maker berated me to never let down my guard again. He taught me that the attack we most had to fear was ambush--not war. He trained me to watch, to heed any changes in my surroundings. I survived many future attacks because of that training. But I never wanted you to have to experience it."

The thought of Eric being tortured, of not being saved by his maker, of being made to suffer on purpose, sent me over the edge and I began swatting at his chest and shaking harder.

"Why... why are you telling me this?" I could tell I was blubbering but I couldn't do a thing about it. "You weren't... You weren't trying to teach me a lesson, were you? I... I didn't think you were that cruel. I... don't understand."

I sobbed loudly and not just for myself, but I couldn't think about that right then. I couldn't get enough air in my lungs. Eric turned me and laid me on my back so I could breathe.

"Shhhh," he said quietly. "Shhh. No, I'm not that cruel, not to you, anyway." Here he let out a strangled laugh. "I didn't leave you to suffer. I came for you as quickly as I could. I would have torn through the heavens to reach you."

He was caressing my face now and I could hardly take it.

"I tell you this... because I want you to know that even the strongest, even trained warriors and vampires, are caught unaware, are taken and tortured and powerless at times. You should think no less of yourself for it."

Yeah, well, shoulda coulda woulda. I felt the dead thing in me stir and rattle me from the inside out.

"I know what it feels like, my lover: To be abandoned. To be tortured," he said softly as he kissed me. "I know it doesn't look that way. My body heals, carries none of the marks. For some, that makes a vampire all the more fun to torture. They can do the same thing over and over again because we heal so quickly."

I pulled back from him and looked him in the eyes. His blue eyes were burning, boring into me with something strong in them, something strong and soft that I couldn't place. And remorse. I studied him for a long while, seeing him in his vampire youth (if you could call 50 years young--and you could, when you were talking about Eric). I'd seen a look of terror and confusion in his eyes before, when he had nothing to cling to. The thought that his maker had done that to him on purpose just chapped my hide. The idea that someone would cut the same spot over and over just to cause more suffering--well, I'd felt it but I could hardly match that with the flawless vampire in front of me right now.

Realization dawned just then and I reached up to kiss him. I'd never thought of it. It had never occurred to me that his smooth strong skin had ever been hurt, not seriously. He healed so fast it couldn't have really been painful, I'd thought. It had never occurred to me that pain was pain whether it was fast or slow. His cool skin seemed impenetrable. It just didn't show it. It hid it better than my body could.

I furrowed my brow at him and looked him deep in his eyes for a long time. If I could have, I would have pressed my mind into him and... I don't know what. So instead I just kissed him again, pressing harder with my lips.

When I pulled back, he was gazing at me, a blank expression on his face, but his brows a little furrowed. Slowly I leaned over to him, lifting his shirt, and he allowed me to remove it.

I ran my hands down his chest to his stomach and studied it. This flesh, I thought as I examined it in the firelight--this flesh has known pain and suffering. It has been out of control, helpless. I could hardly believe it. I kissed his collarbone.

"Show me where," I whispered, and looked into his eyes.

He watched my face intently and I felt like I were in a petri dish suddenly. Then he took my hand in his big, cool one. We both turned to watch the progress of my fingers. They landed on the side on his abdomen, near his perfect stomach muscles.

"This spot they liked especially," he said, a quiet coolness in his voice that hadn't been there before.

He ran my fingertips over one muscle in particular, over and over again. If he were human, getting stabbed just there probably would have pierced his liver, nicked his intestine, maybe been enough to kill him, slowly and painfully. As it was, he had no use for those organs anymore. But feeling it... That was something else. "They stabbed this spot over and over, letting it heal and then breaking it open again."

I knew what it felt like to be healing and then broken open over and over again. My stitches burned suddenly in sympathy. Before I could think about it, I leaned down and kissed the spot softly, running my tongue over it and his fingers. It felt smooth and perfect. It was hard to believe it had ever been torn.

I looked up and Eric was gazing at me with blank astonishment, almost suspicious. He looked at me for a long moment. Finally, he blinked and twitched a little and then moved his hand up, mine with it, to just over his heart, above his beautiful brown nipple. It was a spot I knew well. It was were he'd cut himself in Rhodes and asked me to drink. It's where he'd cemented our bond.

He rubbed my finger over his smooth pec tracing a line about an inch thick. I looked up at him and his brow was furrowed, his eyes clouded.

"They left this spot open," he started softly. "The rest of my chest was covered with silver. But here they left open and they delighted in plunging the knife in, placing it between the ribs. They shoved it deep and it came through my back."

Now it was my turn to be astonished. I didn't know much about stabbings other than what I saw on CSI, but I was sure that in humans, that would be a death blow. He said it so coolly, it was hard to believe that it had happened to his own body. I looked in his eyes, studying him.

I leaned down and licked the spot, watching him. My free hand ran around his back. I kissed the spot again and murmured against his flesh, pressing with my fingers on his back, "Is this where it came through?"

Eric seemed to be holding his breath, though I knew that was just plain impossible. He was looking at me with that expressionless gaze again, studying me. Finally he said, "A little lower."

I moved my fingers and he nodded.

I kissed again. "Turn over."

He obliged and I found the spot I was holding with my fingers and kissed it. "That right?"

"Yes," he said, his voice a little strangled.

"Where else?"

He raised up again and looked at me, cupping my cheek in his palm. I turned my head slightly to kiss it. "Where else?" I repeated.

He seemed to consider for a moment whether to tell me any more. But then he slowly curled his hand into a fist before me and held his knuckles up for my view. I shivered. Calvin Norris's mangled hand flashed through my mind and I felt nauseous. I took his big hand in both of mine and I looked up at him. I knew my face was painted with horror.

"Your _hand_?" I asked, though of course I knew the answer. His look was growing stranger by the moment.

He nodded and held up the other one, too,looking at it like he was trying to decide if he needed a manicure. He didn't fool me for a second. "Both of them."

I began kissing each knuckle carefully, tenderly. I'd seen what it looked like. I'd heard the yelps and seen the color drain from Calvin's face. I knew what torture it was. I was still kissing, but my eyes grew cloudy and I knew I would start crying at any moment. I remembered the snap of my bones, the creaking of them, and the joy the Things had taken in those sounds. I started sniffling against his hand.

I looked up at him, barely seeing and let out a strangled sob. I pressed his hand into my eyes to cover them. I could hardly speak. You'd think after what I'd been through, I'd believe beings were capable of any cruelty, but this shocked me.

"They... they did it more than once?"

His brow was heavy and his eyes were nothing but blue slits now. He looked dangerous suddenly. But somehow, I knew he wasn't mad at me, that no matter how much he suffered, he'd never take it out on me. I don't know why I believed it now, after everything, I believed it. But I did.

He nodded.

I finished with one hand and lifted the other to my mouth, kissing his fingertips and then his palm before flipping his hand over and starting on his knuckles.

"They knew I couldn't struggle if my hands were healing," he whispered as he watched my ministrations intently, his voice cool. "Bones knitting back together hurt more than flesh closing. You... You know the feeling."

It wasn't a question, but I nodded against his cold hand anyway.

When I was done, I laid his hand back on his chest and he just looked at me, and I'll be damned if Eric Northman didn't look unsure. I ran my hand along his cheekbone and he twitched. I was grateful I didn't know what he was thinking, but I couldn't help wanting a little glimpse. "More?" I asked, kissing him softly on his lips.

He took his hand away and I watched as he moved it to his neck, right over his big vein there. I looked at him in surprise.

"_There_?"

He nodded.

"They knew I was weak from hunger and that cutting me would make me weaker still."

I ran fingernails over the spot. It didn't pulse--his heart didn't beat--but it plumped out under the pressure of my fingers nonetheless. I cocked my head, studying the spot, and felt him shiver. This spot had been such a source of pleasure for me--and for him, I was sure of it. How odd that it had been used in such a cruel way. I felt like a vampire for thinking it, but I couldn't help regretting the waste of his blood.

I looked into his eyes, and I knew I was blushing. "Did you lose a lot of blood?"

He captured my fingers and held them there. I felt and saw him nod. I nodded back, serious. I'd been strangled. I knew what it felt like to have your neck crushed. I leaned down and replaced my fingers with my mouth, sucking just a little.

That elicited a groan from him and from me.

And just like that, I was laying on top of him and he was pulling my shirt over my head. Once it was off, I pressed up against his chest and looked him in the eyes.

"Where else?" I asked it softly, not wanting to dredge up more memories for him, but I somehow found that I had to know. I had to know how broken he had been, had to know how he'd gotten better.

He reached up and unclasped my bra and it sagged off my shoulders, my breasts falling forward out of the lacy cups. He reached up and tugged lightly at my hair band, releasing my hair as well. It fell loose and it felt so nice to have it free I shook it.

"Where?" I asked. I knew this was the last chance, that soon I wouldn't be able to think, and I had to know.

He reached up and traced a spot from his eye to his mouth, a big arch. I placed a hand on his cheek, taking his fingers in mine. "Your _face_?" I asked, unable, unwilling to stop myself. I felt myself tear up. I knew what it felt like for your face to be black and blue and crusted with blood. "You're beautiful face?"

He nodded, ever unreadable. I leaned down and the bra straps fell to my elbows. I quickly raised my arm and let it fall completely, throwing it onto the couch. I settled over him, my mouth caressing his eyelid. I kissed him, soft, feather-light kisses from the corner of his eye to his mouth. I felt something warm and intense well in me. _They'd hurt my baby,_ was all I could think as I kissed him over and over again. Unaccountably, I wanted them to suffer. Needed them to. I knew that made me a bad Christian, that I should want to turn the other cheek and forgive their trespasses, but I was clean out of forgiveness just now.

And then I was just kissing him, in long, soft, slow kisses that made me tingle and move a little on him, and he was kissing back. I wrapped my arms around his head, cocooning him, keeping him close and as safe as my frail human body could. My body temperature shot up about 10 degrees.

"Even after all these years, you never forget?" I whispered against his mouth. I dreaded the question, but I had to know. Would I always think of my body as a war zone? Would I ever be able to feel just pleasure in those spots again?

I felt him shake his head. "In my thousand years, the memory has faded but it does not disappear," he murmured against my mouth between soft kisses. I felt myself panting against him and almost couldn't care about his answer now. "Perhaps because I am vampire... and the healing was swift... and my retribution was final..." Here he smiled against my mouth and I couldn't help but be proud of him. "... I took it as a lesson. I don't... Ugh." His hips bucked into me.

For a moment, I was lost in the sensation of it, of his mouth and his body being so strong. It calmed me in a way I could never have imagined. He'd been through awful things, and he was strong and vital. And what he was doing to me made me feel the same--at least the vital part. I shivered, my nipples chill against his cool chest, my side burning with the heat of the fire, the rest of me rocked with a zing of pure pleasure. I began doing some moving of my own.

Just when I thought I couldn't care less about anything else, he pulled my face back with both his hands and looked at me squarely in the eye, passion playing with fierceness in his eyes. He reached his head up and kissed me hard on the lips.

"I don't want to forget, and neither should you, Sookie," he said seriously, nipping at my lower lip with his fangs out. "I want to remember and let every future would-be attacker suffer the pain those vampires escaped that first night."

He raised an eyebrow. A challenge. I knew if it were working, he'd be sending strength and rage and determination through the bond. He wanted me to do the same. He wanted this pain to make me stronger. I searched his eyes.

"I'm not sure I'm strong enough, Eric," I answered his unspoken question, barely a whisper. I let my gaze drop to his Adam's apple. "I'm just human. I'm more... breakable than you." _I'm broken, I'm damaged goods,_ I wanted to say. _I'll never be the same again._

And just in that moment, I felt more broken than I had in days. I pressed my cheek to his chest and felt all the power leave me. I just melted into his cool body, shivering a little.

"You are," he murmured into my hair, kissing me. His fingers traced patterns down my bare back that made me shiver. "You are, dear heart. You have no idea your strength."

I felt his body tense with conviction and I wished I deserved such faith. It was such an odd sensation I wondered if the bond hadn't opened, just a little bit. His mouth found my head and kissed me there and he held me to him tightly. I let out a deep breath I didn't know I had been holding, feeling unaccountably safe and right in his arms.

I don't know how long we laid like that, but it was so sweet I wanted to stay there forever. My mind cleared for what seemed like the first time and I just relaxed into him.

Eventually, my mind started working again and I found myself enjoying the strength, the toughness of him. And to know... Oh, to know that he had suffered, too, that he had had no control over this glorious body... I could suddenly see why he had wanted to kiss me... there... that first night, and the next. I ran my hands down his sides, my cheek still pressed against his unbreathing chest, and grasped at what I could reach of his butt.

"You are so beautiful," I whispered to him, shivering a little at what his hands were doing to my rear. I turned and reached for a nipple, sucking it into my mouth and biting just a little. He moaned approvingly. My hips began moving against him and his fingers grasped tighter, slipping between my legs in a sweet, slow rhythm.

_My warrior, my brave, strong warrior_, I wanted to say, but it was just a passing fancy, so I let it go. Instead I said, "Your body is beautiful. You are so strong--stronger having been through all that. I... I love your body."

I felt Eric grow still for a second and then a light chuckle came from his chest, moving me up and down on him in a delicious way.

"Oh, my lover," he growled softly in my ear. "Do you wish to honor what this old body has suffered? There is much more, you know."

He pulled me back to look me in the eye with that mischievous glint. He raised an eyebrow. Oh, he was loving this.

And in a way, so was I. Eric's cockiness was reassuring after that tale. I leaned in and bit softly at his collarbone. He groaned and pressed into me. I felt his gracious plenty growing hard against my thigh.

I leaned up against him, straddling him effortlessly (hallelujah for that).

He reached up and traced my collarbone to the nipple of one breast. It hardened under his touch and I stifled a gasp. He traced up to a pink half circle near it, the remnant of one of the thing's bites, and looked in my eye.

"Gorgeous," he breathed. Suddenly, he was sitting up and holding me to him closely, kissing that scar. I could hardly breathe with wanting him. I pressed up and into his cool mouth, offering my nipple. He took it softly at first, sucking with the barest of pressure. And then a little harder, and harder still until I was falling against him with every suck, pressing hard into him. His fangs grazed me and I groaned. I could feel the pleasure building, bouncing up and down my body to the bundle of nerves down south. I sighed in relief and joy.

I never wanted to leave his arms and I was so grateful that he was still here, that I hadn't driven him away just yet. And for him to share all that with me--I knew it wasn't easy, what with his vampire secrecy and all. I pulled back from him, sad to lose his mouth on my nipple, but determined to honor his body in some way similar to how he had honored mine.

I pressed him, indicating I wanted him to lay back and he did. His hands ran roughly up my sides, watching me intently, his eyes hooded and lethal-looking. I fell forward on him, rubbing myself against his chest and holding his hands down. I slipped them under my knees, to hold them still. He wrapped his big hands around them and began rubbing lightly.

"Let me, Eric," I breathed against his mouth, before I pressed my lips and tongue against him, tickling his tongue with my own, swirling around one fang and then the other. He growled deep in his chest and I felt it everywhere.

He just lay still. I kissed again at where his scar had been on his face. Pressing lightly and gently, wishing I could go back in time and heal it, that my blood was strong enough to do that.

And so I explored his body, stopping at all the spots I knew he'd been hurt. I kissed along his neck, sucking there for a bit, enjoying his pungent, dry scent against my nose and mouth and teeth. I kissed to his shoulder, where I remember it had been slashed by the fairy when Eric had defended me in Dr. Ludwig's hospital. I kissed back to his nipple and the spot where they'd skewered him over and over again.

I turned him on his stomach gently and kissed around his shoulders, loving his muscles under his skin as I traveled down his spine and over to the spot where the sword had pierced through. I kissed and sucked there and massaged with my hands at his sides and shoulders softly.

I knew there were countless battles in his undead life, and that likely he had experienced some small gashes and bites at them all. I paid attention to all his soft parts and licked along his side till he was back on his back and I could reach the first spot he showed me. I was inching down and couldn't resist kissing on his strong abs and the v that led to his very strained jeans.

I looked up to see Eric watching me with tender eyes rimmed with red.

"You know," was all he said. I leaned up and kissed him tenderly, slowly and then deeply on the lips for a long while.

"Yes," I finally said, and kissed each of his eyes while I reached down and started unbuckling his pants. I kissed that side of his mouth again, the side where he'd been sliced. I shivered remembering how I'd been sliced, and remembering the little red swirls Eric had given me as a gift.

I straightened up and took his hand and placed it on my face. I kissed the palm and sucked at his thumb and then looked at him.

"Watch me," I said and sighed deeply as I finally got his jeans unzipped.

In no time his jeans were off and I was nestled between his legs. He'd gone commando, even to our therapy appointment, and I had to smile at that. But only for a second because then I was busy kissing and licking his hipbones down to his thighs. These strong legs, I thought, feeling his cool skin and the muscles rhythmically tense and release underneath it. They had carried him far. My hands were busy running up over his skin, memorizing it, relishing it, and my eyes were intent on Eric's, because I knew he'd like that.

He was playing with my hair, moving it around, flipping it this way and that, caressing my face. A few times it looked like he was on the verge of saying something, but he didn't and I was too covered in his scent and worked up by his body to question it.

I kissed around, between his legs and and onto the soft skin of his inner thighs. I nuzzled into the soft, golden curls. If it were possible, he smelled good even there. I guess it's like Bill once told me: No bacteria, no smell. But it was not proper to think of one man when I was with another so I just focused back on the beautiful body under me and began nibbling and tickling until finally, I licked the base of his gracious plenty and nuzzled into his balls beneath.

He growled softly and it ignited a flush and a rush in me that made me quake.

_My warrior,_ I wanted to say again, and I almost did. But then it caught in my throat and a blush covered me. Then my mouth was busy with other things.

He groaned in relief and watched me more determinedly than ever as I licked and suckled and caressed the soft cool skin here, taking his tip into my mouth. I'd done this with him before, a few times, I remembered with no small amount of lust. But this was somehow different. It was like I was making love to a different creature, like we were back in that cave, and he were still healing.

It might have seemed like that to him, too, because I'd never seen this look on his face before. It was like he was memorizing me, like I was a wonder to behold. I knew that couldn't be the case after all the years he'd been on this earth and all the women he'd been with. But I couldn't shake that impression, and I suppose I didn't want to. I could live with that illusion a little longer, I decided with the small part of my brain that could think about anything but the feel and taste of him just now.

And then the thought passed and I concentrated on taking every strong feeling I'd had toward him--all the rage and the sorrow and fear and lust and need, especially need, and tenderness and this new fierceness I felt toward him--and tried to express it with my mouth and hands. I pressed him deeper into me than I ever had before. I sucked harder and swirled my tongue and was rewarded with tiny and then not so tiny gasps and growls. They lit a fire in me and I felt like that fire in the fireplace had hopped right over to me and would consume me in a second. I loved this. It was all I could think. _I love this. I love this. I love... this._

"S... Sookie," he groaned. His hips were rocking into me and his stomach muscles were rippling in the sexiest way I could imagine. My fingers ran from his hips, over his belly and then down, tickling and massaging his balls. He sucked in an unnecessary breath and watched.

"Yes... You..." he groaned. "I..."

And then he lost his ability to speak.

I moved faster, found myself rubbing my thighs together desperately as his movements and sounds escalated, taking me right along with him. I opened my mouth wider to take more of him, wanting all of him that I could get.

His hand was now curled around my hair and guiding my motions. His legs had spread wide and he was up on an elbow, watching me, nearly snarling, and I'd never felt so powerful. I moved more quickly in time with his thrusts, a surge of strength spasming through me. I moaned against him, long and low, nearly sobbing with it.

And just like that, I felt his balls tighten and his head swell and I sucked as hard as I could, massaging my hand on him to draw out as much of him as I could get. I moaned again and he shuddered and twitched and groaned out loud.

"S-sookie! Ah, mine!"

I heard him as if he were far away. He might have been done, but I wasn't. I continued to lick and suckle and nuzzle against him, not wanting to give him up just yet. My hands glided around his hips to his award-winning butt, stroking him like he were a beast to be soothed. I felt him catch my hand in his. He laced his fingers with mine. It was such a human gesture I had to peer up. I was vibrating with need, not nearly sated.

He pulled my hand to his mouth, kissed it and then grazed it with his fangs. I felt a small prick and then him sucking my finger and I nearly came unraveled around him. I moaned against him and he stirred back to life. I chuckled to myself. Yes, the rest of him might be dead, but this part? It certainly was not.

"Perfect," he murmured as he sucked my fingertips into his mouth and rubbed my hand against his face. I almost wished he would stop saying things like that to me, since I knew it couldn't be fact. But it did my wrecked female pride good so I just held onto it as another small gift.

I peered up at him and he had that kind of abandoned, relaxed look he'd had when he'd been cursed. I couldn't believe his sweetness. That thought, this feeling, this oddly familiar moment in front of the fireplace, made me want all of him again and I began moving my mouth on him in earnest. I couldn't say what I was thinking. I wasn't thinking. I just let myself be carried on this wave of lust and emotion, enjoying the ride, and enjoying him, not wanting it to end.

He let me go a while longer, until he was completely hard and throbbing again against my lips. And then he pulled me up as if I were a ragdoll, pulling me to curl me in his lap, caressing my side and my breasts and my belly and between my legs. I sobbed with need when he did that and threw my head back. But he was only teasing and he wanted my attention, so he pulled his fingers away. I looked up, dazed, and he was looking at me with such... I'd almost say devotion, but I didn't know what that looked like on his face and it was a crazy thought anyway, my mind was so clouded by lust... I almost didn't dare breathe.

He ran his fingers over my lips and studied them carefully for a long while before pulling me to him and taking my lips with his. He was soft and teasing, languorous (I think that's the right word; sounds right) and slow. And so sweet. Sweeter than I'd ever seen him, felt him. He held my chin with his fingers, keeping me to him, as if I wanted to go anywhere else.

My fingers played along his neck and into his hair. Something shifted inside me with a thunk and I sobbed. But I fought hard and I kept it in check, refusing to let the tears fall and ruin this. I beat back the dead thing to stay in my vampire's embrace, just a little while longer.

"So," he started softly, looking into my eyes. "You wish to be wooed."

It wasn't a question, not exactly, but it seemed like one by the way he was studying my face. Just the thought of it conjured images of Eric in a bow tie and high waters, with a bouquet of grocery-store flowers in his hand. I imagined him tugging at his collar nervously. The image made me smile broadly and laugh despite myself. Eric's gaze turned blank at that and I thought I must have just offended him.

I brought my fingers to his lips and traced them, kissing lightly. I was so confused just then, and I'm sure the look in my eye showed it. What did it mean if he wooed me? Did it mean that this was something, that what we were doing here was more than comforting one another? I felt a deep, old pain well up and ripple through me, and I couldn't consider it just now. I shoved it aside.

If it meant I could have more of Eric, like this, I would do it, damn the consequences. My heart protested but I just nodded and focused on his lips, kissing him.

I looked up at him and couldn't say what he saw in my eyes. Whatever it was, he frowned for a moment and then kissed me again.

"Then you shall be. Starting tomorrow night," he said, certain.

And then his hand reached down and started stroking my stomach, his fingers teasing under the band of the jeans I'd forgotten I was wearing. They were low and when he reached, his long fingers stroked a very sensitive spot. My breathing caught and Eric chuckled his menacing chuckle. My body thrilled to the sound.

He leaned me over and growled against my ear, "But for now, lover, I believe you are overdressed."

**

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A/N:** The poem in Eric's POV is another real one, this one called the "Niflung" in Old Norsk. It's about Bynhildr, a female warrior and handmaiden of Odin. I thought that was appropriate for our telepath. And the last line was perfect for our Viking!

Tell me what you think, if you made it all the way through.


	14. Chapter 14: I Am Hers

**A/N: **Holy crow, people! (As I believe Sookie might say--or is that Bella? Sorry, I get my vampire girls confused sometimes.) Three chapters on one night. I guess it was an important one, huh? It's also shorter because, really, how much more could these two do in one night? Next chapter should be fun. Hope you enjoy, and please comment! I love reading your reviews!

**Disclaimer:** Charlaine Harris owns these characters. I just put them in compromising and angsty positions.

* * *

**Chapter 14: I Am Yours**

**Eric's POV**

_My beautiful girl. My beautiful, surprising girl,_ I thought as I nuzzled into her delectable neck. She shrugged a little and her heartbeat raced and I knew that she would be wet when I finally touched between her soft, healed thighs.

But not just yet.

Right now, I needed to bite her, devour her, take every part of her into me, she was so alive. My instincts warred inside me, a sensation growing uncomfortably familiar in regard to this warm, breakable human. I smiled against her neck. Something more than human. A sort of a supe, the doctor had said. Indeed. I wondered what sort, what magic had created this fierce, tender creature under me. Despite my need to have her totally, I was compelled to hold her tenderly, gently, cradle her and massage her with my lips and hands, as she had just done me. My muscles ached with the contradiction.

My mind flashed: This human's mouth on my stomach, my neck, my knuckles. Weeping for her own pain, of course, but mine as well. Some part of me wanted to destroy her just now, to end this uncomfortable sense of bareness before her. But a greater part--a part long buried--wanted, no, needed, to thank her. To protect her. To serve her.

In my long existence, I could never have imagined sharing my early vampire experience with a human. So many were worthless bloodbags, seeing me only as a fantasy, as fangs and a bang--when they could see me at all, when they were not mesmerized by my glamour. They had neither chosen those experiences nor did I care for them to recall them. I hardly desired the memory--only the brief relief of physical needs.

And never would they... I groaned against my bonded's neck, growing harder still... Never would they understand battle, understand or care or want to know that the indestructible warrior before them had nearly met the sun after just 50 years as a vampire. That I had been as foolish and as reckless as any newborn vampire. That I had nearly forsaken my existence to stupidity and the viciousness of a world I was only then beginning to understand.

I felt myself lashed down to that rock again for the second time this night. The sensation had entirely escaped me for centuries until I recounted it for Sookie earlier. And I only did that to test Pam's asinine theory. Even then, I sought only to curry her favor, only to make her mine completely.

If I had known how it would affect me, I might not have spoken. I might have simply taken her and distracted her from her pain. I had not known then that instead of winning her, it would make me hers, completely and utterly.

Internally, I struggled against the constraints of my feelings for her. But outwardly, I simply reached for her mouth with my own.

This mouth, I thought as I sucked her bottom lip between mine and teased it with my fangs. Soft as feathers, as if this body needed or deserved such gentleness. As if it hadn't healed a thousand times in as many years. A mother's loving touch. A lover's. A mate's. An equal's.

Love.

Sookie always surprised me, but this act of kindness was startling. I gazed at my lover, pulling her warm body to me tightly, growling against her ear, needing her more. Lost. _I am lost._

I did not understand her intentions when she removed my shirt. I thought only that she was giving herself to me, that Pam's suggestion had worked like a charm.

When I had finally comprehended, I had laughed and attempted a joke. I should have known that nothing would distract her from her single purpose. Nothing had. She was determined to honor my body. I shivered in memory. Tenderness and understanding from a human girl. Unexpected. Unbelievable.

And then... Then she had taken me in her mouth, more fully. Not glamoured, not seeking anything but... What had that look been in her eye? Tenderness, certainly. Lust, assuredly. Protectiveness, surprisingly.

Love, I was sure of it.

She had worked my cock with a fervor that made me smile even now. My gums ached with the extension of my fangs, my throat dry and stomach clinched, needing her blood in me. Her mouth was so much better than even my keen vampire memory could conjure, sliding, sucking, working my cool, turgid flesh. Those eyes, dark blue, softer than I had ever seen them, commanding me and she pleasured me, giving and taking at once. It was hard to believe she had had so few lovers.

She closed those gorgeous eyes as I brushed my lips across them, allowing her long lashes to tickle along them. Oh, her hands. I brought one up and kissed it, sucking on her fingertips, fighting the urge to prick them and suck just a drop of her, and eliciting a soft sighs. An amuse bouche indeed. Every part of her, humming with life. I needed all of her.

I growled lowly as I sucked and licked down her jawline to her shoulder, rubbing her sweat-cooled breast with my thumb. She was shaking, and now I was sure that it was from pleasure. She rolled her head back, exposing her neck for more worship. I obliged.

I shifted and cradled her to me, kissing down the front of her throat to the little divot in her clavicle, enjoying the feel of her breath rasping in and out of her throat as her arousal grew. I had been in this position many times before. It would take very little to bite down and crush her windpipe. She would never speak my weakness then. But instead I kissed and was reassured by the breath pulsing in and out of her.

She had not spoken since I had gathered her to me, after she had given me the gift of her mouth. She seemed contented. She may still deny it, but in this moment she was mine. _Mine_. I growled again.

And she knew.... She knew the pain I had suffered. She knew it intimately and recently and she did not waver. I found now that I trusted Sookie with the information and the feelings, however tentatively. She is loyal and responsible. She would not use it to weaken me, and I believed that if she were ever in the position to be forced to do it, she would suffer pain rather than relinquish the information. Even to my mind, accustomed as it was to Sookie's character, this realization rattled my inner resolve. I was nearly as confident in her as I was in myself.

"Sookie," I rasped. "Incredible."

I felt her grow hotter under my gaze. Her blush was furious.

I held her eyes and began unbuttoning her offending garments. I much preferred the age when women were required to wear skirts. But there were quite a lot of undergarments to consider in those days. Such a bother. Or, thinking back further, linen and wool bunched up in my hands, soft thighs laying on furs. Ugh. Sookie on a pelt, my hand slipping up her thighs. I kissed her hard on the lips, pressing my tongue into her eager mouth aggressively and tugged her zipper down.

"Tell me, lover," I breathed against her mouth as she shimmied up off of me as we both worked to shed her of her jeans. She kicked her legs inelegantly, freeing herself of the fabric, and my hand found her bottom again, pulling her close, my fingers drumming along the soft flesh there. Mmm. To bite there. Again.

"Uhh?" was all Sookie managed. _Yes. Mine._

"What do you like best?"

Sookie's body rocked with pleasure and she let out a surprised laugh. "Eric!" she sputtered, looking at me with half-unfocused eyes. "I'm not telling you that! What you're doing is just fine."

I laughed throatily against her ear at the implication and she shivered. I would remind her of that later.

I licked along her ear. "Oh, dear heart," I chuckled. "I would like to know very much how you would like for me to arouse you." I ran my fingers under the lace of her panties at her hip. "But what I mean to ask is, you enjoy dancing, I know. You enjoy the sun. You enjoy long hot showers." This I punctuated by pulling her head back and running my fangs along her jugular. Her shiver pleased me. "But there must be more."

I stroked my fingers in slow circles along her thighs.

Her head shot up and she looked at me, the blood pumping alluringly to her surface.

"If I am to... woo..." at this I dipped my fingers under the lace of her panties, caressing her soft fur, "... you, I must know your preferences."

She let out a strangled moan that delighted me. I did it again to elicit that sound and she did not disappoint. She smiled at me giddily, passion flashing in her eyes. She lunged forward and I felt the whole of her press against me as he kissed me hard, licking my fang fearlessly.

"Tell me," I whispered into her mouth, undeterred. My fingers dipped to the front of her panties, running softly over her hair there, massaging a little, dropping lower.

"I... uh... I like to... to read," she panted. I dipped into her again and again, because I could. Because she was mine.

Her slickness and her scent made my senses sharper and I greedily sucked in the sound and feel and smell of her. Combination with the wood in the fireplace, it was very pleasing indeed.

"You prefer a specific author?" I asked, tearing her panties away from her, wishing to be done with the inconvenient fabric.

She panted, staring into my eyes. I felt her body grow hotter, her mouth slack and fluttering with every strained breath. So beautiful.

I slowed my ministrations for a moment and she looked up at me. I raised an eyebrow to urge her to answer.

"Anne... Anne Mallory or... oh... Patricia Cornwell..." she sighed, twisting her head to the side to suck my shoulder. The sensation rippled out from there across my body like a pebble on a pond. "Whatever... oh... Whatever I find at the library--romance novels or mysteries."

She breathed all this into my shoulder and her hot breath made me groan.

I leaned in and nuzzled her hair. Such a gift when she is like this. "What else?"

Her breathing labored when I slipped one finger and then a second into her.

"Ah," she groaned, curling to meet my fingers. "Yes."

She sprawled in my lap, spreading her legs and adjusting herself to offer herself to me completely. She reached a hand up and caressed my face, where I had been slashed, and for a moment I felt the deep cut of the knife in my flesh. I flinched but then looked down at her, something growing deep inside me that would demand attention very soon. I wanted to fuck her until she couldn't move, and then give her my blood and take her again. My chest rumbled with the need.

I bore into her with my eyes, communicating my need without words. I plunged my fingers in deeply, twisting and curling them at the end, eliciting a deep groan from Sookie. She began moving on my fingers and I moved along with her, driving her and responding to her. Glowing in the firelight, her eyes on me with effort, she was fantastic.

"Exquisite," I murmured to her and I plunged another finger into her, bringing her to rise off my lap in surprise. My thumb came down on her nub and circled it lightly and then more directly as we moved. Her face was a canvas, and across it I saw her desire, her fierceness, her fear, her tenderness for me. I saw how much she wanted this--not just the physical act, but to be close to me, to be connected.

And then she did the thing that I loved almost more than anything else her remarkable body could muster. She let out an aggravated, desperate cry and then tore her eyes from me, exposing the soft expanse of her neck to me. An offering. Her pulse point throbbed quickly, in time with the thrusts of my fingers and my eyes tracked it as Sookie continued to writhe under me, moving herself to get the perfect angle. I licked my lips, my mouth parched. I moved my hand lower and then up, changing my angle to hit her spot perfectly.

She shouted in relief and pleasure.

"Oh, oh, oh!" she sobbed as her body arched under me, pressing my hand into her more deeply.

When she was ready, I leaned down and licked at her pulse, feeling it dance under my tongue. She was more erotic, more perfect than she could know. A strangled sob of pleasure came from her throat just then. I rubbed my fangs along her vein and shivered at the sensation. It spread down my neck to my shoulders and then rippled throughout my body in a divine echo. Sookie's breathing became more faint and came more quickly. I could feel it under my lips. Yes, just here. Just at the precipice. My Sookie. My beautiful girl. My warrior. My Bonded,I thought with some sadness. _Mine_.

"You want this, Sookie."

Her heat was licking its way into me and I couldn't help buck my hips with the wild writhing of hers. I groaned. She was perfect, so I said it.

She just groaned. "Yes," she breathed with effort, nodding her head frantically. "Please. Oh... Oh... Oh... Please."

_I love her,_ I thought as I plunged my fangs into her glorious veins and her warm blood swirled around my tongue. The sensation of it clouded my mind and I pressed into her harder and suddenly I had her on her back, on the ground and I was entering her, my face still in her neck, still pulling lightly on the wound, sipping from her.

But she--she was not subtle. She was roaring with orgasm as I felt it clamp down on my cock for the first time this night. Her pussy pulled me into her and the friction as I withdrew was intense and demanding. With a slight buck of my hips I was buried into her completely. I needed her. I needed her heat, her strength, her love.

So I took it. No time tonight to savor the warm, wet feel of her on my cock. No time for slow exploration. I thrust into her and I felt alive in her presence. Her orgasm still gripped her, and she was arching and contracting against me as I licked her neck closed and plunged into her again and again. Her heels dug into my bottom and fingernails dug into my shoulders. She was pulling me, demanding that I push myself into her deeply. I pulled my head up from the hot aroma of her neck and clasped her head in my hand.

Petting her hair away from her sweat-slicked face as I pressed into her again, I rubbed my thumb over her lips before taking them, too.

And then I caught her eyes with me. "My lover," I growled, holding her gaze. She was wild, not recovered from her last release and building toward another, her mouth reaching for something to bite, to suck. This one thing I denied her. I had to see her. I needed her to see me.

I continued to stroke into her, continued to relish the feel of her under me and around me, and her scent, but my eyes were focused in on hers. I held them, shaking her head gently whenever they threatened to glaze over. She would not hide from me, not now. For the first time in centuries, I sought to be brave in a new way, to allow her to see my feelings on my face. I held her eyes and felt rough and fierce and the intensity of my love for her overwhelm me. It welled, a different sensation than the orgasm that was growing in me. It made me shudder with force and sent a rumbling snarl ripping from my chest. I was taking long, deep, fast strokes now and she was angling her hips and grunting along with me. She was magnificent.

The pleasure of seeing her face abandoned of its pretense, devoid of her rage and defenses, flushed with passion and power, added to my craving for her. There was still tenderness there from earlier and my body remembered her kissing it, remembered her gentleness and understanding and clinched in the knowledge. I rutted into her a little harder and she bucked.

"Ah!" she groaned.

Yes. Mine.

I could tell she was close again and I was nearly there myself. Her pupils were completely dilated, her head arched back though her eyes still sought mine. I could almost smile. Even now, even so close to complete abandon, she was challenging me. Brave girl. It made me twitch inside her.

I leaned in, still holding her eyes and bit her lip just hard enough to puncture it with my fang. I sucked it and her lip into my mouth. That was all it took. Her eyes rolled back in her head and she arched completely, grasping onto me inside and out, coming for me, so strongly and so long that she took me under with her. I felt myself begin to quake and squeezed my own eyes shut, burying my face into her hair and closing the small gap that still existed between our bodies. A roaring blew through my mind as I continued to stroke into her full speed, one release not enough for me. I would not let her go. Not now, not ever. I kept going, holding onto her for some connection to the real world, feeling her rippling with pleasure and building again as I built again also.

The rush of wind in my head grew again, obliterating all thought, and I could hear my bonded sobbing underneath me as we both crossed the precipice together, crying out, abandoning ourselves completely. I slowed my thrusts, enjoying the wet sounds of us, enjoying the feel of her pleasure shuddering through her and echoing in me.

I kissed her face all over, urgently.

_Mine. Always. Alway. Mine._

And then a new thought: _Please_.

I held her like this for a long while, enjoying the after effects of her orgasm rippling through her and clinching onto me from the inside. She milked out every last bit of me into her. I curled her close to me, pressing her breasts and belly against me as I shivered with the after effects of my own orgasm.

I nuzzled her ear as her hands floated over my back, one settling on the spot where the sword had pierced through. Holding it. Only holding it. Nothing more. I shivered under her hand and pulled her closer. Never would I give this up. Not until the sun shone on my face again. I pressed into her absently, not wanting to let go.

****

"Movies," she said finally, with a soft sigh and a relieved laugh.

Her breathing was back to normal, but that did not mean I intended to release her.

I moved to look at her. I raised an eyebrow in question.

"I like movies," she said, a sated, tired smile on her face. "And music." She struggled to reach a hand up and I allowed it. She caressed my face and laughed softly. I did not understand her amusement, but kissed her anyway. When I leaned up to break the kiss finally, her head followed mine and stubbornly refused to release my lips. I cradled her head, extending the kiss. Her body reacted from the inside out, and I felt a tug on my cock. Finally she broke away and took a deep breath in.

"You are beautiful," I said, staring into her deep blue eyes. Her eyes wavered. She wanted to look away. But I held her there and saw the discomfort on her face. Confounding.

When she didn't say anything, I added, "Tell me."

For a moment she just looked at me confused, her eyebrows furrowed in an endearing way. Then she started speaking, telling me of the films she enjoyed, the music, singers and actors she loved and how some of these movies or songs were associated with specific moments in her young life. I wondered which songs reminded her of us.

After a long few minutes of talking, she began to wiggle out of my embrace.

"It's getting cold," she said by way of explanation and I finally left her body, handing her my robe, which she shrugged into sexily. I felt my cock twitch and I knew she saw it by the way her face blushed.

I smiled greedily.

"Oh no you don't," she said, edging away from me. "You might be able to go all night, but I'm still human. I need to rest. And maybe eat."

This would not be the final word on the matter, but I would permit the break. I smirked at her but nodded, moving to add a few more logs to the fire. It was then that I noticed that it was already 3 in the morning, and that Sookie may be more prudent than I realized. She would need to eat another meal and sleep, much as I'd prefer to keep her pinned to the floor here or her bed all night. Then I remembered how she'd reacted to being pinned and moved to her side, kissing her hands and wrists softly. I did not wish for her to be over-exhausted tomorrow night. She would need her strength for our first date.

I chuckled at the thought. Who thought I would ever have a proper first date? The gods must be laughing.

I stood and pulled her up with me. But she wobbled a little and then winced in pain.

"Ow!" Her face went very pale.

"Lover?" I pulled the robe aside and looked her over. Her body appeared in tact--more than in tact. I worried for the first time this night about her healing stitches and pussy. Had I injured her?

She smiled at me through her discomfort. "I... I don't think it's anything serious," she said through clinched teeth. "Let's just say I might be walking funny tomorrow."

She tried to smile up at me but failed.

I looked at her askance. And then I understood as she shifted uncomfortably in front of me, rubbing her thighs together.

I could not repress the feral excitement this gave me and I let out a loud, satisfied laugh. I pulled her to me and looked her in the eye as I bit into my finger with a flourish. Snaking it down between the open robe I began rubbing my finger around and into her. She leaned against me and caught her breath. She felt... slick and swollen and perfect. As I traced her, she let out a coo.

"Eric," she said in warning. She'd meant what she'd said before and I did not doubt it. I also did not seek to injure her more or be the cause of any more of her distress tonight. Still, I found myself lacking in self discipline. I brought my finger back up to my mouth and sucked, savoring her taste. I bit again, releasing a little more of my blood and slipped it inside her before she could protest.

"You must be well, my lover," I said, almost a moan as I felt her inner walls begin to ripple against me. I found the spot, the sore, torn area, and rubbed it carefully and thoroughly. In a moment I began to feel it closed and slippery in the way of all scars. I lowered my head to her breast and sucked it softly. Her breathing became erratic. I cherished the sound.

Then I straightened up and regretfully removed myself from her, my desire obvious. Sookie slumped against me, a shocked gasp escaping her lips. I ran my hands over the robe, and her breasts underneath, and closed it in a quick snap, tying it deftly.

"All better?" I asked, smirking at the shocked expression on her face.

She looked at me with need but I saw anger flare to her surface. Her eyes were lustful and angry and hurt that I'd done as she wished. I repressed a laugh, just a twitch of my lips betraying me. She stood up straight and pulled the robe more tightly around her, lowering her head for an unconscious sniff of the fabric. Then I did laugh. I folded my arms over my chest triumphantly.

"Yes, I'm just fine now," she said icily, and pushed past me toward her bedroom, the long robe trailing behind her.

****

_Sandra Bullock_, I typed into my computer's search engine. I had a long list of Sookie's preferences to investigate--Mariah Carey, Shania Twain, Beyonce, Carrie Underwood, the aforementioned actress, the Pussycat Dolls, among others--and decide how best to begin my wooing of my telepath.

I was in the middle of investigating this actress's films--one seemed particularly promising for my Sookie's tastes and experiences--when my computer beeped and an email appeared on the screen.

_Master,_

_Here are the columns you requested, as well as the list of holidays. _

_I hope our succulent telepath is healing well. _

_Pam_

I smiled at how well she was healing--and how I had helped to heal her tonight. My fingers itched at the memory, and I allowed myself a chuckle at her reaction to my sudden withdrawal from her earlier. I scanned through the holidays. Most I had heard of: Halloween, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Easter, various solstices. And then there were the more obscure ones: Secretary's Day? Groundhog Day? Mother's Day? Father's Day? Grandparents Day? I honor my ancestors, but this seemed absurd, especially for my Bonded, who had been abandoned by her family quite young.

Valentine's Day.

This one nagged at me. Hadn't Dear Abby made a point to highlight this one? I opened another tab in my web browser and began investigating the holiday. Feb. 14.

Curious.

A Christian saint, somehow come to be seen as patron saint of lovers. A day traditionally celebrated with confectionary, flowers, romantic gifts and notes between lovers. Occasionally jewelry. Well, I knew what Sookie would think of that, so I ignored it and did a search for Valentine's Day gifts.

Then I began scanning through the list of 30 attachments my child sent me, seeking suggestions for Valentine's Day.

One seemed particularly apt.

_DEAR ABBY--I am an avid reader and hope you can educate me on how best to celebrate Valentine's Day with my human. I am 507 years old, and have no recollection of this saint or his significance, but my human has begun to ask me questions about what he can do to please me on this meaningless holiday. I understand it is customary for the male to court the female in this situation, but honestly, I have no need for such formalities. It is quite enough that he shares his bed and blood with me. I have long since ceased caring about flowers (few bloom at night), and I am quite capable of buying myself any jewelry or lingerie I desire. What must I tell this human to keep him satisfied?_

_MISS ROMANTIC_

_DEAR MISS: Well, aren't you a human man's dream! A lady who couldn't care less about this holiday, that is more and more becoming a so-called greeting-card holiday. And you don't want fancy gifts! I bet you have human men beating a path to your door. (I mean that figuratively, Miss Vampire--please don't take this as license to beat the humans at your door.)_

_Honestly, if the holiday means nothing to you, there's no reason to celebrate. Tell your man to simply come over and have a good time with you and that'll suffice. But before you do that, think about it: You might have found the one human man with a romantic streak, and it might make _him_ happy if you agreed to something. Do your part and ask him._

_Then if it turns out that he really wants to celebrate, I say there isn't enough love in the world. Go for it! Think about something he might be able to offer that you can't or won't buy for yourself. I know there may not be much, but try this exercise: Is there anything he could give you that would remind you of him when he is not present? A photo or a token that might mean nothing to the vampire next door but might resuscitate your still heart? If so, allow him the pleasure of offering it to you.--ABBY._

I reread the column. I would not tell Pam, but this Abby is canny. My Sookie (it stung too much just now to think of her as my Bonded, knowing what I know how of her feeling about our bond) is not vampire and I wouldn't allow myself to think of how spectacular she would be as one, but she is similarly uninterested in jewelry. And I found that I quite enjoyed the prospect of giving her something to remind her of me during my daytime rest.

I did a little more research, making a list as I went. I sent some emails and then stowed my computer under Sookie's bed, before making a quick jaunt around the house. Soon, I was back in bed and I turned to my little warrior resting soundly next to me. I spooned behind her, enjoying her breathing even as the pull of dawn was dragging me toward that little hole in the ground. I grunted in displeasure. We would need to begin moving on the light-tight room shortly. I dislike rising without her, I realized with a start. I had spent centuries rising alone, and happy. But this night, the prospect of leaving my... my Bonded for my daytime rest left me irritable as if I had not in fact fed from her luscious neck just hours earlier.

I placed an arm around her and took an unnecessary breath of her scent. She smelled enticing--the lingering scent of sex and my own scent mingling with her pronounced and unique smell. I wished she would continue to allow her body hair to grow--it had lengthened in our month apart, a fact that no doubt would horrify her if she knew I noticed. Modern human women were so silly about such things. If she only knew that unshaven women's scent could clung to them even more fully. Instead, with a bare body, that magnificent scent sloughed off once released from their pores. More's the pity. I pulled her close, thinking, enjoying, remembering.

_You are adventurous,_ I had once told her. I chuckled against her. Always surprising, always courageous. I kissed the nape of her neck and heard the beating of her heart accelerate. I prayed to the gods that she would be well when I rose.

And now for a new adventure: The wooing of Miss Sookie Stackhouse.

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**A/N:** I have to ask: I think I know what Eric's going to get her, but I'd love to hear what you think he should give her. Lay it on me!


	15. Chapter 15: My Bloody Valentine

**A/N:** Obligatory apology for the delay in updating. Explanation of the holiday season and work. Promises to update more quickly in the future. (You know the drill. I really do mean all those things though. The fact is that this chapter gave me a great deal of trouble. I am tempted to write out a happy ending but don't want to lose the soul of this story, which is about healing and trust. So I tried to throw a little of both in. It's about 25 pages in Word, so plan your time accordingly. I hope it lives up to expectations.)

I've put together a playlist for myself of WDED songs, and this chapter is brought to you by those songs. Also, this date is not nearly over, so get ready for more goodness next chapter. At this point, this story is going to be loooong.

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Disclaimer:** I don't own any of these characters. They belong to Charlaine Harris. I'm poor. Don't sue.

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**Chapter 15: My Bloody Valentine**

**Sookie's POV**

Eric kissed my forehead and I closed my eyes and leaned into him.

Or I tried to.

I didn't know what was wrong, but I couldn't get my neck to move. I tried to raise my arms, to pull him close to me, but they were heavy, immobile. I tried to breathe and it burned like razors tearing down my throat. And so, though I wanted to linger, his lips just brushed my forehead and then he straightened and looked down at me with a breathtakingly tender, weary look in his eyes. His eyes. Normally he doesn't look his 1,000 years, but in that moment, looking down at me, I could see it all weigh on him--all his battles, all his losses.

He pulled my hair back from my face and it hurt. I tried to wince and that caused a stabbing pain. In my face.

"You did live," he said, matter-of-factly. No emotion. But his eyes... There was something in his eyes. "And they died. And you are mine, and you will be mine. They will not get you."

I opened my eyes and took a deep breath in. My hands flew to my face, touching it gently, testing for cuts and scars. Nothing. Smooth and clear. My fingers combed into my hair gently, waiting for it to hurt, but it never did. My fingers just slid through easily, and, except for getting caught on a tangle or two, caused no discomfort at all.

And then I could see around my room. The sun was weak. Winter light always did have a gloomy cast too it, especially when the sky was stormy and grey like it was today. I wondered what the thermostat Jason gave me said. I'd have to check.

But I couldn't concentrate on that now. I looked down at myself and I was laying in bed naked, the covers pulled up tightly around me. As I shifted in bed, my body felt gently sore--not immobile, not heavy, not pained, just gently sore. Another dream. But at least this one didn't leave me screaming.

I swished my legs under the covers. What a nice feeling, my muscles moving without pain. I moved my hips and remembered how I got sore. I blushed.

And then it struck me. I knew exactly what I'd been dreaming of. It came back in a rush. A biggish bed. Clack-clack-clacking of knitting needles, the little doctor at my elbow. And Eric. Eric feeding me his blood and preparing for one more battle before I'd be safe. My heart tore and flipped in my stomach and throbbed dully in grief and tenderness.

That look in his eyes. That's the look. That's the look I saw last night as I kissed his wounds. Weary, tender, determined, surprised. And every minute of his 1,000 years somehow staring back at me.

I.... I wanted him all over again. The need slammed into me like it was hitting me from the outside and I lost my breath. The heel of my palm caught the tears I caught there. I snorted and tried to slow my breathing.

Too much. I wanted him too much. So much I felt angry at it. Something tensed between my shoulder blades to ward off the notion, but I couldn't shake it. It was those eyes. Something in them.

I pulled myself to sitting, pressing my chin into my knees, trying to steady my breathing and stop the water works. I'd never been a crier. Gran had always said self-pity was a luxury for the rich and the idle. I'd never been either. But maybe all this idleness, all this laying around and moping, was bringing it out in me. But Eric...

No. I ought to do something. I could clean myself up. I could make myself breakfast. I could maybe do a little cleaning. I could definitely change the sheets on this bed. I could make myself useful. And I could stop being Weeping Willa.

I whipped the covers off myself and headed to the bathroom. When I was sure my teeth were clean and my face was scrubbed, I studied myself. All that vampire blood. I turned my head this way and that to see its effect: Clear skin, rosy complexion (or maybe that was all the orgasms Eric had given me last night, I thought, my skin blotching with more blush). The dark circles on my eyes had receded a little more, and I was looking less drawn.

I'd always wanted to be a size six, it was true. But not for this reason.

My hands drifted over my shoulders and down my chest. I fingered the little arched scar on my breast. The one Eric had kissed last night. I watched in the mirror as my nipple tightened instinctively. My breath caught again and I had to lean against the vanity to steady myself.

I looked up, I looked away. My hair. It sure was shiny, like when I'd sprayed it with lemon juice to bring out the highlights in high school. Lemons. Ugh. A quick flash of that horrible fairy, lemon juice beginning to sizzle her skin in a clumsy arch from her eye to her side. I shivered. I didn't want to think about that anytime soon.

Maybe I'd just start carrying lemons with me everywhere I went. And a little hand-held juicer, so I could stab them with the juice if they got close.

I pulled my robe from behind the door and slipped into it, stepping back in to my room to find something to wear.

And that's when I saw it.

A bouquet. How had Eric gotten me a bouquet so early in the day? I glanced at the clock. Oh. Well. Not so early in the day, then.

How did it get to be 3 o'clock in the afternoon already? I only had about two hours till Eric would rise. Not that I had big plans, but I wanted to do something before he got up, to have some semblance of my own life. Just five days together and already I was keeping vampire hours.

Still, the bouquet was beautiful. Sparse: Just a few flowers. Some winter-blooming daffodils and Louisiana irises, along with some snowdrops sprayed around the side. I smiled and ran my fingers along the delicate low-hanging flowers of the snowdrops. I knew them real well. Every year, Gran planted the bulbs in the yard. She used to say that they were God's winter present, reminding us that life went on in the middle of a cold, dead winter.

Huh.

I looked at them again. Come to think of it, Gran planted daffodils and irises, too. But he...

I shifted to the window and craned to see the flower beds on the side of the house. Sure enough, some of the plants were full of the long leaves but the flowers were gone.

Eric had picked my Gran's flowers. I hope that doesn't mean they won't flower again next year...

I covered my mouth and laughed and fingered the little delicate flowers again. I didn't know what to think. I smiled back at the flowers. On the one hand, it sure was sweet for him to give me flowers. On the other hand, he didn't need to molest my garden to get them for me. I shook my head. This is Eric wooing me?

My hand fell from the flowers and landed on a little note. I opened the envelope and out slipped that photo Eric had given me, the outtake from his racy Vampires of Fangtasia photoshoot, the one... Lordy... that beckoned to me. I fanned myself absently with it and unfolded the note inside:

_Dear Sookie,_

_Do me the honor of being my date this night. Please honor me by meeting me in the living room at first dark. Wear a dress. In the meantime, please enjoy your flowers and think of me. There is a frustrating lack of wildflowers in Louisiana in February. _

_Your Valentine,_

_E_

_PS: I have arranged for a few deliveries to be made during the day but instructed all to leave them outside and not to disturb you._

I stared at the note and reread it. Uh oh. Deliveries. A dress.

I was going on a real date with Eric Northman. I was thrilled and terrified.

In for a penny, in for a pound.

And then I looked at the clock. Two hours and he'd rise. I did some quick math. Even on my best days, two hours wasn't quite enough time to shave my legs, paint my nails and get myself all gussied up for a hot date. Not that I'd had many of them. And not that this was a hot date, I reminded myself quickly. It was... therapy. Doctor's orders. To renew the blood bond. Great--fix something I didn't even want in the first place.

Still, it was a date. And you can't blame a girl for wanting to look pretty.

So: change of plans.

I had about a dozen different thoughts, and all of them needed to happen at once. OK. One thing at a time.

I spun on my heels and started flinging the pillows off the bed, shucking them of their cases as I went. I stripped the bed and pulled out fresh sheets from the linen closet in the hall. In no time I had the bed made and leaned down to smell the fresh sheets. Ah.

I carried the dirty sheets to the porch and turned on the wash. While they were in there (using up water and messing with the water temperature), I headed for the fridge. It was like a present on Christmas morning: So full of good stuff I didn't know where to start. It'd been almost bare just a week ago, but now there was left-over chili, gumbo and biscuits, cheese and eggs and lunch meat and it all just looked delicious. I guess after our long night last night, I was hungry. I smiled and then scowled, remembering how Eric had healed me and then left me high and dry. Well, not exactly _dry_. I flushed and swished my legs together, thinking of how Eric would make it up to me tonight.

A date, I marveled, and then slapped myself mentally for getting so excited. Who knew what this really meant?

I fried myself up a few eggs and microwaved some of the left over biscuits and ate as I headed to the bathroom and turned on the water in the shower. I swallowed down the cup of milk I'd poured myself for good measure.

In a small part of my mind, I was amazed at how mobile and how brave I was. When I stepped on that soft floorboard and heard it squeak just now, I jumped, but I didn't collapse. It'd taken me a few minutes to calm my breathing again and I can't say those images and memories of the Things didn't come roaring back. But I just kept repeating to myself that I was a warrior, and that Dr. Gumby thought I'd be better in three months, and that I could get through this. And that if I got scared, Eric would be up in a few hours and I'd get to be safe in his arms again.

That last thought rattled me and the dead thing inside me slithered coldly around my belly.

Ninety minutes till first dark.

As I lathered and shaved my pits and washed the shampoo out of my hair, thoughts about last night started drifting through my head. I turned off the shower and turned on the tub faucet. We'd talked about so much last night. And then Eric... Well, I'd never expected that of Eric last night. I wondered how many people he'd told that story to. I wondered at the look of tenderness and almost fear and surprise in his eyes when I kissed where he'd been wounded. Something had felt so right about it. I liked being able to help, to contribute something. I liked that he seemed just then... to need me almost. I know that's crazy--the idea that a 1,000-year-old Viking could need a brain-scrambled barmaid was nuts. But it had seemed that way and a warmness spread across my chest.

And then my gut tensed, and I felt a high, keening panic.

I combed deep conditioner into my hair and gathered my disposable Bic and shaving cream. I started to wonder about the blood bond.

So the bond is closed now. Nothing I'm feeling right now or that I felt last night was influenced by Eric--and if Eric was right, almost nothing I'd felt this week had been influenced by the bond, either. I settled into the bath and propped my leg up on the lip, smearing it with shaving cream.

He had said he hadn't felt the bond at all for the past week except once.

I knew right away what that once was. I flushed all over, the blush showing up in splotches through the clear water. I'd felt so connected to him that night--but not in a she-heels-nicely way. In a way that felt like we were of one mind, that felt like I was cherished and so was he. That I _mattered_. That he was really seeing me. It felt like we'd felt--before he'd gotten his memory back and lost our time together. Before he disappeared on me. Before I distracted myself with work. The dead thing reared up in me and rattled my ribcage and I found myself wanting to come apart at my seams.

I tried to shake it off, but instead, tried to distract it.

So what _did_ I feel?

I surely lusted after him. Bill hadn't been kidding when he said that sex with Eric would be unforgettable. It just went to show that you didn't need to be in love with someone to love their body. And boy, did I love Eric's body and what he did with it--even from the very beginning. As soon as he touched me in this very tub (I might have shivered) it was like a key in a lock. A very big key in my very willing lock.

What I hadn't known was that Eric would know my body the way he does, that he would respond to me the way he did, that he would get that look in his eye and that he would say I was perfect and the best he'd ever had. I felt a shudder like an hourglass, tingling and fizzing its way from my breasts to low between my hips, curling and twisting my belly along the way. My nipples tighten against the soft heat of the water.

Even last night, when I'd been in a snit at first dark, all he'd had to do was press up against me and I could only hold on to a tiny tendril of anger, and even that seemed hardly worth it when he was close like that. My brain started whirring with memories and I almost couldn't breathe with wanting him so. I bit my lip. If I didn't move on to other things, I'd never get through this bath and I'd just greet Eric naked in the other room, and we'd never leave it. And if I entertained the idea for a minute, it was only because I was being thorough.

I bit the inside of my cheek hard. I bet he'd like that. I shook my head. _Focus_.

So I lusted after him. That much I knew. But I guessed... I guessed I had to admit that something about the way he held me and wanted me made me feel something else too. Something like gratitude.

Last night, he had let me please him, and then he had taken me, over and over again. It was like he couldn't get enough of me, as if we'd been separated for months instead of a few hours. That idea made me breathless even now.

But it was probably in my head, I told myself. And besides, that was how _he_ felt about _me_. I still didn't know how I felt, it was hard to pull away from thinking only about how sweet he seemed to be to me. Between his overwhelming feelings and the bond, it was no wonder I never got a handle on how I actually felt.

All the energy ran from my body and down the drain. I felt like mush. Soft, tingly, scarred mush.

Time to change the subject.

Redirecting my thoughts again, I remembered after Dr. Gumby left last night, when Eric had told me that story. My muscles tensed and a sharp rage shot through my back, straightening me. I remembered feeling fiercely protective. Horrified for Eric. Tender. But it's only right--only human--to feel such things when someone has been tortured. It was the Christian thing to do. Wasn't it?

Some part of my brain objected. _They'd hurt my baby_, I'd thought at the time. (But you could forgive any thoughts during sex, couldn't you? Hadn't I absently thought of Eric as a pet I could keep? I laughed. A pet vampire. Right.) I remembered kissing him and thinking it just the same. Protective, as if.... I could hardly think the words, I was so tired of vampires laying them on me. But there it was. Protective as if he were mine. There.

Ugh. I sighed, defeated. I was getting to be just as bad as Eric.

It had felt good, though. I remembered cradling his beautiful face in my hands and kissing the line from his eye to his lip, where he'd been sliced repeatedly. My heart shuddered against my will, spreading warmth and rage and... something soft and intense, too. Mush again. I trembled, something just on the edge of my consciousness. Some thought. Or feeling. I concentrated extra hard on my legs, feeling where the razor had gone and checking to make sure I didn't miss a single hair.

Then the feeling, realization, passed and I felt like I could breathe again.

And what about all those times I'd gone to him, waited for him in his room, laid on that closet floor just wishing I could be with him? _That_ wasn't the Christian thing to do. As I thought it, something in my chest shuddered and flipped and I had to slow my hand on my leg so I wouldn't cut myself. I reached out my mind and found him in the other room and my belly grew hot and lurched to be in that room with him now. And then all those times when I'd grabbed my keys and almost headed to Fangtasia? That surely was the bond. He said his blood would always want to be near him, that I'd always want to be close because of it. That did feel out of my control. It was even now. I felt weary and sad and full of longing.

So wanting to be with him was the bond, but everything else I felt with him was mine and mine alone? That didn't make sense somehow.

I finished with one leg and dropped it into the warm water, allowing the water to swish around it and remove the last traces of shave cream, feeling that delicious sensation of smooth skin through water.

I lifted the other leg and prepared it for the same treatment.

But I'd felt other things, I countered, just to explore all sides, I told myself. Eric always could be real fun. Last night he'd been a hoot, snatching that paper away from me, letting me toy with him, letting me win and then swooping down on me. That look in his eye right before he descended on me sent a thrill through me even now. He was so incorrigible (a great word of the day entry). That laugh of his. That evil grin, when I just knew he was going to do something bad with me. A gentle warmth spread across my chest and I laughed down at my leg, remembering.

I'd had fun. That'd been real. That'd been my real feelings last night, I thought with conviction.

And then when he'd said those sweet, ancient words to me--whatever they were--hadn't I swooned? Hadn't I genuinely felt cared for? Cherished, even? A ghost of his fingertips crossed my neck, his breath tickled my ear, and suddenly I was all goo inside and my head grew dumb and cloudy. I closed my eyes, stilling my hands from their work, and throbbed. On the other hand, wouldn't any girl swoon from hearing someone croon in a foreign language to them? I'd heard it in others' minds often enough. I knew men put on those accents and learned foreign languages just to get someone in the sack. Was that what Eric was doing? He wasn't above using any of his charms to seduce me.

On the other other hand, I'd already been thoroughly seduced on the nights he'd done that. Wasn't it supposed to go the other way around?

And wait, the other voice chimed in again. That wasn't all it was, was it? It was the gentleness and tenderness he'd said them with. As if he meant them. As if he could love...

I saw a tear fall into the tub. Panic and anger seized my heart like a fist. Cherished? Loved? Naw, that was too too much. I was sure of it. I think. I forced my eyes open and concentrated on my leg.

But wasn't that how _he_ felt about _me_? Oh lord. How _did_ he feel about me? I mattered to him, he said. But as what? And what would it mean? He'd said before the fairies caught me that he wanted me to be only his lover. Was he still staking his claim? Was this just about making sure I'd still give him sex? I couldn't think so--not with how teary and angry and contrary I'd been these last few days. Eric could get sex wherever he wanted it. No, no. He had some... feelings for me. What they were and whether he was really boyfriend material was another matter.

He could move me into his house and I could quit my job and lose everyone I ever loved just to be with him. That seemed to have been what he expected when we talked last. _Eat bon bons all day and let him eat me all night..._

Or... He could leave again any time. I felt a little sick. He could make me feel like the most important person in the world and then disappear and go back to work for months at a time and leave me the way he always seemed to. And I'd still need him.

I stared at the soap scum on the tile wall. A flash of emptiness passed through me, and it tore at me as surely as any knife ever had. I felt as lost as I did wandering through New Orleans that night... that terrible night. _I have nothing_, I remembered screaming. I felt the sobs building in my chest but clamped my mouth shut and refused to let them out. I refused to cry over him ever again.

And then I pictured Eric's face, desperate. Telling me to suck the bullet out of his chest because it would heal inside him. He'd been wild-eyed, looked pained, cried out to me, guilted me for having taken a bullet for me. My eyes narrowed.

Liar.

How did I know anything he said was true? I thought with fear. How did I know what he told me last night wasn't just calculated to win me? How could I trust him? Did I really know him at all? Would any vampire allow me to? Despite myself, I thought of Bill again--how distant and secretive he'd been. And now I knew why.

This was a suicide mission, I thought to myself, balling up my hands reflexively. Dating Eric. I almost wanted to laugh but it caught in my throat and came out a weird, strangled hiccup. It was one thing for him to heal me with his blood. And even the sex--the amazing, multiple rounds of sex--had been healing. But dating Eric?

My heart sank and I refused to think on Eric's highlights from last year. Standing on my porch and telling me that he didn't have "hang around me" to show he cared for me. Telling me that my date with Quinn was his business because he'd slept with me and cared for me and paid me money. Asshole, to make me feel like a high-priced hooker. He pulled that whole "you are mine and you will be mine" crap, as if that made up for his disappearing act.

I shook my head. I refused to think about that scared and desperate Eric who had insisted on coming home with me one last night. I refused to think about waking up the next day to the old Eric--no longer my Eric. How I'd had to stifle all those adoring impulses to tousle his hair and bite back the desire to kiss his head in passing.

I clenched my teeth. How many women had tried to change their man? And what did they get? They got the same old boorish man and a whole lot of heart ache. I knew it from every heartsick woman who came into Merlotte's to drown their sorrows in cheap beer and plan their next round of mate improvement. I shook my head and tried to get a handle on all those gooey feelings. And if kicked the tub angrily, well then I must have just lost my footing.

I was a damn fool.

But, on the other hand (how many hands was I up to now?), if he was so untrustworthy, why did I feel so safe with him? (_Because you're a damn fool,_ I told myself again.) But I had felt safe--awful safe. Every single time he'd held me this past week, I'd finally been able to relax. All that worrying swirled right out of my head. I wasn't afraid. In fact, it was the only time in my poor, rattled day that I wasn't. The rest of the time, I felt disjointed, like the world was likely to turn on its side at any moment. But with Eric, I was safe.

Was that the bond, or was that real?

I'd always had that sensation when I got close to him before... all this. In Rhodes even.

There was something about that. Rhodes. Something tickling at my memory about it, but I didn't have time now. I swished my leg around in the water and got up, pulling the stopper. In another minute, the conditioner was out of my hair and I was at the mirror drying it.

I'd succeeded in rattling myself to my core. So it was the perfect time to try on clothes. Naturally. What would I wear?

I studied myself in the mirror and realized for the first time how pale I'd become. No sun and no tanning bed for the past month and my tan had faded completely. Well, that meant the white dress with the flowers was out. It'd look just terrible without my tan. Plus, Eric had already seen me in it, if he'd even remembered.

No, I'd have to find something else. I wondered what would fit. After drying and curling the ends of my hair, I headed to my closet and opened it, pausing to turn on my clock radio. I guessed I'd turned it to WDED at some point and they were playing "Sunrise, Sunset," I guess in honor of the darkening day.

I considered my closet. I had four dresses that hadn't been covered in blood spatter, guts, been burned or blown up in one supernatural calamity or another.

One was the white dress. The next was a denim minidress with lots of zippers. I could put a blue ribbon in my hair to match. But no. It seemed a little casual. For what? I asked myself. For sitting around my house? But still. It didn't feel right for my first real date with a Viking.

Next was an emerald green dress I bought on clearance from Tara but never got a chance to wear it, intending for Quinn to see me in it. Well, that'd been a bust. But maybe I could put it to good use now. It was low cut and gathered around the neckline with little puff sleeves, and a fitted skirt. I pulled on some undies and my green bra and slipped into the dress.

Beautiful. But too big. It hung limply from my shoulders and gapped at my waist. My heart sank. I turned this way and that and wondered. Could I belt it? Would that disguise how much weight I'd lost? I had a pretty checked belt that might be cute with it, and then I could wear my black heels and some black and white bangles. I grabbed the belt and tried it. I scowled. I looked just like someone who was trying to make a too-big dress fit.

I huffed, sliding the dress off again. I looked at myself in the mirror, in just my undies. I was pale--not quite fish-belly pale but pale enough for me not to feel sexy--and I still had some dark circles under my eyes. Without a dress to wear I suddenly felt raw and damaged all over again. You can wrap road kill up in a ribbon but it's still road kill. And now I couldn't find the right ribbon.

I turned back to my closet and didn't hold out much hope for the last dress. It was more a sentiment than a dress. I hadn't worn it for five years, at least--but not for lack of trying. It was red stretch knit and when I say stretch, I mean I stretched that thing like a rubber band trying to squeeze my size 10 butt into it. I'd looked like a boudin last time I'd shimmied my way into it. You could see everything: The line of my bra, my belly button indenting on my belly, the line of my panties. Everything. I'd struggled out of it as quickly as I could back then and shoved it to the back of my closet.

I guess I kept it the way women keep one favorite thing that doesn't fit anymore, hoping some day I'd slink into it again. It was so pretty, I thought, running my fingers over it longingly. It was cherry-tomato red, with a sweetheart neckline and pretty little spaghetti straps that tied in bows at the shoulders and a few layers of ruffles at the hem. It wasn't too long and not short enough to have raised Gran's concerns when I wore it out with Tara. It was the kind of dress you wore out dancing. It was a breakup dress. A dress you wear to get attention.

Well. Maybe it would fit again? If not, it was the green dress and the belt and my best attempt not to feel dowdy.

I took a deep breath and steeled myself for disappointment. I slipped on my strapless bra and I tugged the dress over my head, holding my breath as I pulled it down. I adjusting my boobs in the cups, tying the shoulders at the right height and turned to the mirror.

No boudin here.

I may have bounced up on the balls of my feet just a little. But I didn't clap my hands like a schoolgirl. No sir.

It'd look better with a tan but it didn't make me look sickly, either. It pulled a little at the hips, but the rest fit just fine. I twitched my hips back and forth in celebration, watching the hem flutter along my smooth thighs.

I turned and looked at my rear view. Not even a panty line--of course, the smaller undies I wore these days helped with that. Despite myself, I smiled giddily at my reflection.

If I had to go through hell, at least I could fit into my favorite dress again.

"That was 'Waiting for the Night to Fall,' by Depeche Mode," came the deep voice from my clock radio. "I don't know about you, this time of day is the hardest for me. I'm waiting for my night-animal honey to rise, and I just have to wait. That's why I love this song. Hey, I'm Patrick, but for you, I'm Patty the Pet. I'll be with you for another 20 minutes, and then Connie the Corpse will be here with love songs till dawn. Now, let's get our hearts racing. This song goes out to all the paranormal paramours out there, both living and dead."

On came "Waiting for Tonight" by Jennifer Lopez and I danced for a minute in front of the mirror, happy that I could dance, and happy about my undead date coming to claim me in a half-hour.

I boogied over to the dresser and picked up a few things and settled on the side of the bed. I slathered some lotion on my legs--almost no scars, I noticed. God bless Eric. And dabbed Obsession behind my knees and on my neck and wrists. And if I dipped a little between my breasts I was only being thorough. I smiled softly to myself.

"Waiting for tonight, oh oh oh oh," I sang badly. "When you would be here in my arms! Waiting for tonight, ha oh oh oh oh! I've dreamed of this love for so long..."

I added some gold bangles I'd picked up at Claire's and selected a simple gold chain for around my neck. I slipped my little red dot studs into my ears and headed to the bathroom to put on a little makeup, and took a break to lift my hair up and dance sexy in front of the mirror. Not bad.

In no time I was sliding into the gold strappy heels I'd picked up on deep discount at Dillard's and slipped on a little white sweater to keep me warm on this cool night. I took a second to admire myself in my mirror. I fluffed my hair and felt a little flutter in my stomach, wondering if Eric would like it. Not bad for road kill.

I was excited.

_Fool_, some small part of me warned.

Yep. I was a damn fool. But here I go anyway.

***

"Waiting for tonight..." I sang, and grimaced at my own tonelessness, as I walked down the hall in heels. Hey, now _that's_ a sound I never thought I'd hear again--not the singing, but the echo of my heels on the wood floor. My legs felt weird and shaky. I guessed all that laying around and falling out left my muscles a little limp. Looking down, I was a little disappointed I hadn't had time to paint my toenails, but at least I had time to remove the old polish and trim them up so they didn't look terrible.

I was so distracted by the thoughts about my nails and the clack-clack-clacking of my heels that I didn't notice that soft floorboard until I stepped on it. My heart, naturally, jumped into my chest and I had to steady myself against the wall and remind myself where I was. Home. Safe. Going on a date! _Don't ruin it now,_ I begged myself. _Don't collapse now, of all things. Get it together, Sookie._

After a few minutes, my heartbeat calmed again and I took one shaky step forward. When that went well, I tried again. Slowly I made my way to the kitchen. I poured myself a glass of milk and got a couple biscuits and some honey for a snack.

I was licking my fingers clean of the honey when I saw the little sign by the hearth: "Light me."

It was just a little note, in Eric's elegant handwriting. Inside the hearth, the logs were all laid out in good Boy Scout fashion (or maybe it was Viking fashion. Maybe that's where the Boy Scouts got it from?).

I let out a surprised laugh. "Light me." Like Alice in Wonderland. I wondered if there would be little jugs with signs that read, "Drink me," and little cakes that said, "Eat me." Then, idly, I wondered if there really were Mad Hatters and Cheshire Cats and walruses and carpenters tricking oysters--and, and playing cards painting white flowers red somewhere out there. At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if Eric hired some to repaint my house. That'd be just like him.

I smiled. Then an image of Pam in that blue dress and headband hit me. Oh goodness. That Mad Hatter would be in _trouble_.

"Curiouser and curiouser," I chuckled to myself, shaking my head. I was going to hurt so much for doing this, but I couldn't stop myself.

With a smile, I lit a match and held it to the crumpled up newspaper under the sticks and twigs, and watched as the orange flame slowly licked at the paper. That got me thinking of Eric's tongue and how good he was at licking, and those little red swirls. My body temperature shot up about 10 degrees and it wasn't from the fire.

Just then, I got a flash of Eric's wild eyes bearing down on me in front of this fire last night. He'd held my face, insisted I watch him--watch him wanting me--and my stomach twirled even now. His blue eyes had sparked and narrowed and gone fuzzy around the edges as we moved, and they'd kept me together when I thought my body would fly apart. What I felt when I looked at him... I couldn't describe it. I wanted all of him--not just his body, but all of him, and I'd take the deceptive, snarly, opportunistic side of him if it meant he'd gaze at me that way again.

"Don't move, my lover," I heard Eric call from the hall, and just like that, my whole body started to throb. Guh. I had to put a hand on the ground to steady myself. A tiny part of my brain--the part that didn't liquify when it heard that sexy baritone--whispered that it wasn't the bond that made me feel that way. I squirmed uncomfortably. "Don't turn around. I have a few things to prepare before the wooing can commence."

Well, I wasn't going to stay down here crouched over the fire until he got back. And, sue me, I wanted to present myself as best I could for him. So I moved quickly back to the couch and fidgeted around on my seat, trying to think of how I would look most alluring. I fidgeted with my sweater, covering my chest and then exposing it, undecided. I guess I let it drape open. Maybe a little.

I didn't want to look too eager.

The problem, of course, was that I _was_ eager--for him to look at me again as he had last night. To hold me that way again, to want me that much again. I'd spent so much time smiling at people who were thinking mean, nasty and despicable things about me right to my face, people who generally thought the world would be just fine without me. And lately, I'd spent an hour with a pair of fairies to whom my simple existence was an insult. They'd done their gosh darned best to do that other group of people a favor and rid the world of me for good. My hand absently drifted to my legs, fingered a spot on my calf where there'd been a big chunk missing before Eric's blood had healed it.

I tried to shake myself from this sorry train of thought. I didn't want to be Poor Pitiful Pearl on my date--whether the date is good idea or not. Still, I wondered if people would ever stop hating me for just being me. And now I'd found vampires--or rather, they'd been told to find me, I thought with a sigh. Vampires whose brains were blessedly silent and who seemed to like me for the very things that made me horrible to people.

I wasn't Crazy Sookie to Eric. But did they--did _he_--want me for me, or because of the fairy blood and my telepathy?

And with that, the vampire in question was at my ear, making me jump. "Good evening, Miss Stackhouse," he said, managing to make it sound like a leer. His cool tongue snaked out and licked my ear, causing me to yelp. "Happy Valentine's Day."

I furrowed my brow and looked out the window at the dark, thinking.

"It's not..."

And just like that, he was sitting next to me, holding my hand, those beautiful blue eyes appraising me. I felt like the prize steer at the county fair, but I straightened up anyway, wanting to look my best.

He, of course, looked lickable. And if I licked my lips it was only because it suddenly got hot in the room. I blame the fire.

He was wearing a blood-red sweater over jeans, and his black boots. The jeans fit really well, from what I could see from this angle. Over the v of the sweater, little puffs of soft, blond hair peaked out. I wanted to nuzzle right into them, but this wasn't the time. I took a deep breath and could smell his natural, dry scent, along with something musky. Cologne, must be. My belly contracted with a twang.

It wasn't until I felt him brush his lips against mine that I realized I'd leaned forward to sniff him. His fingers were tracing my cheek and then he pulled back and straightened up, clearing his throat. It was such an oddly human gesture I had to smile and look up at him.

I did my best to imitate him, to sit upright. I brushed my hair back from my shoulder to get a little breathing room, and maybe to fan myself a little. Was it wrong that I wanted to straddle him?

Yes. Big lust. That was definitely not a result of the bond.

"Sookie," he said softly, pulling me to stand next to him, holding my hand overhead and encouraging me to twirl around. "Gorgeous."

I guess I passed his test, because when he was done evaluating me he pulled me close as if we'd been dancing and leaned down and gave me one of his signature Eric kisses, all slow and smoldering and sure of itself. I felt it from my toes to my lips and tugging everywhere in between. I tried very hard not to sag against him. I really did.

When I could collect myself, I pressed my face into his soft sweater--I wondered briefly if it were cashmere, too--and breathed him in deep. My hand snaked down to hold that beautiful heinie of his and squeeze, maybe just a little. It wasn't proper first date etiquette, but I figured it wasn't proper for me to have had multiple orgasms with him before having ever been on a date, either. Putting it that way made me feel bad about myself, but I found I couldn't rephrase it just then. I was stuck on the orgasm part. This wasn't a conventional relationship--or whatever--as far as I could tell.

I felt a little rumble of pleasure in Eric's chest, vibrating against my cheek. I was suddenly so relaxed and contented I could have stayed there all night. (Bond or not bond?)

"You look gorgeous yourself," I whispered and then realized what I'd said. "Handsome, I mean. You look real handsome."

Eric leaned back and I could see him smiling widely. "I'm glad I'm gorgeous to you, my lover."

I guess he wanted me to see just how gorgeous he was because the next instant, he stood back from me and lifted his hands over his head and stretched like a big cat, twisting slightly this way and that. I can't say I objected. His sweater rose up just enough to expose a sliver of his muscled belly and the little trail of hair there. I flashed hot and tried to focus on standing firm. Maybe he sensed my unsteadiness because he took my hand and, slowly, turned so I could admire all of him, moving my hand from one to the other as he did.

My eyes followed that award-winning butt as it made its appearance. I swallowed hard. Yep, big, big lust. And yep, those jeans sure did hug him right, cupping those cheeks like a mama swaddling her baby. With effort, I left my hands where they were.

My head craned after his rear as he turned, and Eric caught me looking. I smiled wide, feeling my cheeks grow pink, and looked down. I bit my lip to keep myself from lunging at him. I told myself sternly that we needed to be able to be clothed and upright with each other if this were a date.

A date. Lordy. _What was I doing?_

Eric smiled that smile that made little arcs by the side of his mouth. I flashed to kissing it last night, and imagined the knife there and shivered.

"It's not Valentine's Day, you know, Eric," I said to distract myself. "We missed it by a few weeks."

I pulled back to look up, up, up to look him in the eye. Eric smiled down at me and said slyly, "Valentine's Day is for lovers, yes?"

I nodded.

"And we are most certainly lovers." He pressed his hips forward into me and I felt his _love_ pressing into my belly. Oh my. "So I am bringing Valentine's Day to you."

I didn't want to think too much on what I'd been doing on the real Valentine's Day. Probably wailing and flailing and carrying on. And I _really_ didn't want to think about what he'd been doing--or who. I much preferred this one.

A smile spread across my face--a small, shy one. I'd never had a real Valentine before, not since Jimmy Orley in 7th grade. He'd given me a Tweety-Bird card and charm bracelet and then thought about how he was going to tell his friends that he felt me up. Charming.

I bit my lip and just nodded. I pressed into him. Two could play that game.

Eric flashed a feral smile at me and said, "I believe it is customary to begin with a romantic meal. Come, sit."

Uncertainly, I let him lower me to the floor, wondering what my meal would consist of--and then, heatedly, wondering when Eric would take... his meal. But I didn't have long to wonder because he was off and back before I could say, "My bloody Valentine."

"Close your eyes, lover," he murmured and I shivered. I did and I felt air move around me. I assumed it was Eric laying out my food. And then I felt the cool mass of his body press against my side and his lips at my ear.

"Keep them closed lover, and open your mouth."

I almost had to laugh, it sounded like such a come-on. And so very Eric. So I smiled and when my lips parted I felt something cool and smooth press against my mouth. A glass. I felt the weight of the glass against my lip and tilted my head, ready for the liquid. It rushed in and it was tart and rich. Wine, I guessed.

I felt a drop fall from my lip as he pulled the glass away and I reached for it, not wanting anything to happen to my pretty dress or my white sweater. It'd be just my luck to ruin another piece of clothing with Eric around.

But before I could reach it, I felt Eric's fingers wipe the drop away. And then his fingers were in my mouth and I reached out my tongue to stroke around them, tasting the wine and Eric's unique flavor on them. I might have closed my mouth around those fingers and sucked a little, but it was only because I felt Eric's lips on my neck. I couldn't help it. It was a reflex.

We both let out little moans.

"Sookie," I heard Eric groan against my neck. "I want to lay you back against this couch right now and rip your panties off and ravish you."

My mind turned to mush and my body thought his plan sounded like a good one. I put my hands around his wrist and sucked a little harder on his fingers, grazing them with my teeth.

Then quickly his fingers left my mouth and he was pressing against my waist, holding me away from him.

"But I also understand it's customary on a first date to withhold sex," he growled and my eyes flew open in shock. I sought his eyes with mine. He wasn't going to work me up and leave me, was he? I might actually explode. "You are not making this easy on me Sookie. In fact, you are making it... very... hard."

He smirked, though his eyes looked lethal, and pulled my hand to his lap, and the very, very straining evidence of his frustration. Now everything in my body told me to straddle him, to hell with decorum.

But his hand held me in place and he removed my hand from his lap. "Me?! You're the one putting your fingers in my mouth and my hand on your... well, all that gracious plenty you have there."

My face burned red and Eric's pleased laugh made me laugh too. _Danger, danger,_ a part of me yelled, but I squashed it.

"Oh, but I'm not done with you yet, my lover," he said. "Now please close your eyes again. We must continue your meal."

His smile was so winning and he looked so beautiful in the firelight that I gave in. I shook my head and closed my eyes. And I just sat there. Nothing happened for a long few minutes. I just sat, turned toward him, and felt his weight press against my side. The warmth from the fire bathed me. It was quiet. Tranquil. In the distance of my room, I could hear that WDED was still on and they were playing, "I Want to Spend the Night" by Bill Withers. I loved that song. Gran used to listen to it when I was little.

My skin prickled with anticipation as the minutes went on. I knew he was still there. I didn't hear the rustle of anything indicating that he would be feeding me any time soon. I guessed he just liked having me sitting there waiting. I was getting ready to say something when I felt his hand brush my hair behind my ear, sweeping the strands behind my back, his fingers sending sparks down my shoulder and back. I turned toward him further and heard my breath catch in my throat.

"My beautiful girl," he breathed, and he was so close his breath tickled over my face. I turned myself toward it. I felt weightless and painfully aware of every inch of my skin at the same time. And then his lips were on mine again, massaging and separating them, suckling and nibbling and making me whimper.

And just as quickly, his mouth was gone and I lurched after him. But I didn't have a chance because something flaky and warm and buttery was in my mouth next. I bit and chewed. some kind of amazing bread and some rich, buttery cheese. I felt it still at my lips so I took another bite and another until it was gone and I was nibbling his fingers again. I heard him grunt softly.

He took his hand away again and I scowled and, eyes still closed, shoved at Eric's chest.

"More?" I heard the laughter in his voice and grumbled. "Open."

I felt something else against my lips and acquiesced (an old calendar entry). This time it was crisp and juicy. Apple slices followed by pear sliced slipped into my mouth and I chewed and swallowed, occasionally licking Eric's tormenting fingers, just to get him back for what he was doing to me.

Then more bread with something earthy on it. Something kind of meaty and fatty and amazingly delicious. I held his wrist as I chewed bite after bite and groaned softly in delight.

"You like that one, I see," he said. "Would you like another?"

I nodded as I licked his fingers, swirling my tongue around them. Then I licked down between his fingers and teased the skin there with my tongue. He growled. "Sookie," he rasped, and my name, said that way, made me tingle all over. I could feel my nipples push against the lace of my bra. I shivered.

But then Eric fed me another piece and another. Apple with cheese. Flaky bread with cheese and that delicious meaty spread. Wine. The next bite I reached for with my mouth greedily, but when I bit down, I felt the hardness of his knuckle and a gasp from the vampire it belonged to.

"Oh!" I said, sucking the delicious meaty spread off his fingers. "I'm sorry."

He grunted his forgiveness and leaned in to kiss me, biting my lip with fangs extended. I felt it once again pierce my lip and now it was my turn to gasp. He sucked my blood out of the little wound while my tongue sought out his fang and caressed it. Our mouths got in a little tussle over this, with us shoving forward and back to get the upper hand, him wanting to suck at my lip, me wanting his mouth open enough to find his fang, until I finally laughed and opened my eyes, pressing myself fully against his chest, my hands tracing the fine lines of his pecs.

He was smiling, too, and pressing up against me, sucking on my lip. His eyes were closed and his face looked relaxed and contented. I liked the look of it and ran my hand along his cheekbone and down his strong jaw. His tongue snaked out and sealed the little wound in my lip. I sighed.

In a quick movement, I found myself straddling his lap. Finally. My skirt slipped up my thighs a little and I was glad they were smooth, if not tan. Eric's big palms caressed my exposed skin.

"That was delicious," I said, looking at his dilated eyes. "Thank you for feeding me. Should I feed you now?"

He smiled a fangy smile at me and growled low in his chest. I held his head in both my hands as I raised myself up to kiss him slowly, like the way I loved him to kiss me. When I came down, I could feel his hardness slide against my center and I sparked all over my thighs and hips and shuddered a little. Eric's shudder made me feel better about my wantonness.

He moved to turn his head to my neck but I leaned back to stop him.

"No," I whispered, barely able to contain myself as I rocked myself forward a little on him, the pleasure snaking up me and tickling me everywhere. "Close your eyes."

He looked at me and smiled broadly. He raised an eyebrow at me and then simply closed his eyes and waited, a smug smile on his face.

I rolled my eyes and then sat there a minute. It sounded good and sexy to feed him, but now I had to figure out what to do. I just looked at him while I thought, at the smug smile, his relaxed features, his Adam's apple that I'd like to bite some more, his strong arms and broad chest, the little bit of chest hair snaking out from under his soft sweater. I bit my lip, where he'd just bitten. He was so beautiful, and lolling back against the couch like this, I felt something... What was it? Excited, yes. Horny, of course. But something else. But then I couldn't think because I could feel the wetness on my panties and was sure he could feel it on his jeans. I flushed at the thought. But this was one of the things that was so fun with Eric--he was passionate, but playful, and I felt the same just now.

I looked at his hands on my thighs, those delicious fingers he'd fed me from, and got an idea. I leaned in and pressed my breasts against his chest and wiggled a little, because I knew he'd like it. I didn't mind it so much myself. I kissed him softly on his lips. I felt his hands glide up my thighs, pulling my skirt up with it, and put my hands on them to stop him.

"I don't have sex on a first date, mister," I teased, even though I wiggled against his hardness in a way that made my whole body flood with happiness.

And then I ran my fingers over his lips and said, "Open."

He did and I ran my index finger over his fang, down it's curving length and to the sharp tip. I took a deep breath and then pressed the soft flesh of my fingertip against it, feeling the pang of it breaking my skin open. I let out a little sound when it happened and then turned to run my bleeding fingertip on his tongue.

He sucked it eagerly, and I felt every tug of his mouth down much, much further. I let out little sounds and so did he, and when he licked that finger closed, I held another up to his fang. I repeated the process over and over, until half my fingertips were dully sore, like when we'd had to do blood typing in high school.

But there was another ache now that I didn't have in high school. That's the only explanation for the image I had next. I imagined raising myself to the edge of the couch, spreading my thighs and inviting him to bite the artery there. My breath caught and I felt sweat touch my forehead and behind my neck. Just the thought nearly ended me, but I... I just couldn't do that. Not now.

So instead I raised myself up a little and turned his head to my neck. I pulled my hair out of the way and could barely breathe as I felt his nose nuzzle behind my ear and felt his tongue snake out and search for the vein. I found myself moving on his body as his tongue danced along me.

"Oh, oh," I sobbed. And then his arms closed around me and brought me down hard on his lap as his fangs sunk into my neck. Between the pressure in my neck and my center, I couldn't hold on any longer and seized up in pleasure, grunting something as white and gold and red shot across my vision.

For a long minute, all I could feel was the pressure on my center and Eric sucking at my neck. I shivered and felt aftershocks ripple through me. I felt a little lightheaded, but I didn't know if it was from pleasure or from Eric taking my blood. I decided I'd think about it later, when Eric wasn't making his own sounds and thrusting up against me. He froze, too, and I could feel him spasm under me.

**Eric's POV**

She lay in my arms willingly, riding out the aftershocks to both of our bodies. She was so warm and soft in my arms, spread against me. Her breath and her heartbeat were my serenade. I desired nothing more than to hold her like this for hours, nights, years.

My dinner, indeed. I smiled and laughed against her neck. So full of surprises, this warm little warrior. If I had not tasted her blood with my own tongue, sucked her fingers with my own mouth, I would not have believed it possible. She teased me with her fingers, pricking them for me. How did she know? I laughed. Perhaps she could read vampire minds after all. Clever and creative.

"My Valkyrie," I whispered to her, enjoying the feel of her breasts pulsing against my chest.

"Hmm?" She did not move, and the effort to make a sound seemed to strain her. I petted her back, urging her not to move, to stay here.

I nuzzled in close, kissing and licking the two puncture marks, enjoying the dance of her blood below the surface. I did not answer. Speaking seemed superfluous.

Instead, I remembered the feel of her warm tongue and mouth on my fingers, sucking and swirling. She knew exactly what she was doing to me and I could smell what I was doing to her. We were so well matched. I leaned in a bit more and greedily sucked in her aroused scent.

Her arms had threaded around me and held me to her. I was hungry for more of this: hungry for her wanting me, hungry for her desire for me, hungry that she should want to keep me here with her. For a moment I allowed the feelings from all those months ago to flood bad. I knew in my bones why I had offered to leave my job and stay with her forever. For this--for the simplicity and unadulterated joy of this. I wished I could do it again. I could hand off the bar to Pam or simply sell it. I could easily support both of us on my savings and other investments. I could do something for work, some diversion, that would keep me close to her. I hated that to keep her safe I had to keep my position.

My heart opened completely to her in that moment and I felt the creaking of the bond. It did not open, but it seemed to flex under the weight of our love. I had to believe she was feeling this too.

My fingers drifted under her sweater and up again to caress the bare skin of her back. She shivered.

When she leaned back, her eyes were heavily hooded and she seemed relaxed and contented. She caressed my face and gazed at me, a small smile on her face.

"So much for not having sex on our first date," she said.

I chuckled and caressed her sides, ghosting over the swelling curve of her breasts. "Oh my lover. That was child's play compared to what I want to do to you."

I pressed her down against my still straining erection and sighed. Her eyes nearly closed with passion and her mouth opened slightly. She was a vision.

But I would keep my promise.

"But later," I said, and regretfully pulled her off of me and tucked her into my side. She clung to me and I reveled in it. "Right now, I believe it is a Valentine's Day custom to exchange gifts."

I raised an eyebrow at her suddenly crinkled eyebrows. She was displeased by this? Oh, my Sookie. Always resistant to material expressions of affection. I was glad that I had returned the car I'd purchased for her, though the junk heap in her yard was in no condition to go anywhere.

"But I don't have anything for you," she scowled.

I smiled at her and flicked my hand in acknowledgement and dismissal. "No matter," I smiled and wagged my eyebrows at her. "You may reward me later... naked."

She rolled her eyes and was distracted long enough for me to produce the wrapped gifts I had hidden behind the arm of the couch.

They were small things--nothing close to what she deserved--but also things I was confident she would allow me.

As she took the first and glanced at me wearily through her lashes, I smiled.

"These are to remind you of me during my daytime rest," I said, and I knew lust was barreling down at her through my eyes.

First was a small bag stuffed with tissue paper--it had been awkward for me to figure out how to wrap the gifts, and the bag had come with the order from the store. I had nearly shredded half the paper trying to disguise the products underneath.

She peered into the bag and glanced back at me in warning. I laughed. Did she expect a real human heart to be in the bag? Far too messy, and how would that advance my directive? I shook my head at her worry and raised an eyebrow in challenge. I placed an arm behind her and pulled her close.

She removed the paper and pulled out the large framed photo. When she saw it, much of her blood flooded to the surface and she turned a color not dissimilar to the shade of her dress. I laughed.

"Eric," she said, eye's bright even as her fingers covered her mouth. Her pulse throbbed more quickly in her neck and I could smell her becoming aroused again. "I... I can't put this out! What if someone sees? What if Bonnie sees?"

I laughed, imagining the aide bringing Sookie's breakfast and capturing a view of me standing on that bed and extending my hand out toward her.

_Do you not want to proudly show what is yours and only yours?_ I wanted to ask. Instead, I reminded her that she had asked for a poster-size reproduction of the same photo.

"I thought this might be a little more discrete," I explained, still grinning triumphantly at her reaction.

"Right," she scoffed. "Because you're the master of modesty."

I laughed loud and long, feeling the joy rumble from my chest. I would be very pleased if she would place this on her bedside table and wake to it daily. I told her so.

She blushed and smiled, looking at me sideways. I caught a flash of something pained and insecure, but then she placed it back in the gift bag and leaned over and kissed me.

"Ah, thank you for thinking of my... modesty," she said, licking my lips. "You big, shameless Viking."

I laughed loud and long again, leaning my head back. I drew her to me and kissed her hard for the pleasure of it.

When she was panting, I pulled back and handed her the next package.

"This isn't going to be your red jockey shorts or something, is it?" she teased. "Something to keep under my pillow?"

I laughed and decided just then that she would find another present under her pillow when she rose tomorrow. Very creative, indeed, this little warrior.

I just nodded to the gift and raised an eyebrow.

She took the gift and tore off the tissue. She pulled out three books, each with a muscled Viking warrior wielding a sword while a debauched-looking maiden clung to him. She began laughing immediately. The look of joy on her face made me proud. She was laughing so hard, she began leaking and I leaned over to lick the tears away.

"You are too much," she said when she recovered herself. She leaned in and kissed me softly and pulled back before I could take her again. "You know, I read one of these before, at the library."

"One of these three books?" I glanced down at the cheaply made paperbacks.

She shook her head. "No, but I thought I'd try the series," she said, smiling broadly. I had not thought something so small could make her so happy. I would have to send this Dear Abby some sort of reward. "It was... fun."

I picked up one of the books and flipped through he pages. "I especially liked this title: The Very Virile Viking," I said, teasing her. I found a page and read: "His burgeoning manhood called to her, igniting in her stomach and much lower down. She ached for him and she decided then that she would have him."

She snatched the book from my hand and I leaned after it, if only as an excuse to gather her in my arms again. I put her hand over my straining cock and said, "Does my _manhood_ ignite a fire in _you_, my lover?" I licked her neck again and felt her shiver.

She rubbed her hand over me gently and slowly for a moment and I rumbled with the pleasure of it. I could feel her heat through the thin material.

"I see it ignites one in you," she said lowly and then squeezed gently before removing her hand and gathering the books in her lap.

"Thank you, I love them," she said softly. "I can't wait to read them!"

I leaned in and said, "Perhaps I could read some to you sometime," I whispered in her ear. I felt her tremble under me.

She swatted at me playfully. "Oh I don't know about that," she said, leaning in to grant me greater access to her neck. Temptress. "I don't think I need a romance novel when I have my very own Viking under my roof."

I growled at her admission that I was hers and wondered how long it would take for her to acknowledge that the opposite was also true. But I also felt her stiffen under me and looked up in time to see a look of grief pass over her face.

I took one of the books from her hand and, to distract her, said, "You know, we did not dress in pelts. Though I would be happy to recreate this image for you in the flesh."

I flashed again to Sookie on a pelt, wearing a fir and slipping it off for me. I growled and I felt her grow hotter next to me. I helped her out of her sweater. It was the first time I'd seen that the top of her dress was held up only by flimsy bows. I ached to bite the ribbons and release her from their confines. Later, not now, I told myself. You must still woo her.

"I posed for a cover like this once," came Sookie's quiet, shy voice.

My eyes grew wide and my fangs were so far extended that they ached. I felt myself twitch behind the teeth of the zipper. I growled and looked her in the eye, urging her not to look away.

"Tell me," I said, my throat suddenly dry, my hunger not nearly sated.

She glanced down briefly and looked back up. "It was a favor for my cousin Claude," she started, and I saw a ghost of sadness drift across her features. But then she reined it in and that naughty smile I loved inched across her face. "I wore a very low blouse with my bosoms flowing over the top and my skirt was hiked up to my thigh, where Claude held me."

I could see her studying my response and she grinned happily when she saw it. "It was so Claude could enter a contest for romance novel models," she added, concerned, I suppose that I would kill the fairy. "It was a favor."

I might want to kill the fairy later. But right now all I could see in my mind was Sookie and I reproducing this cover, with her in pelts and me wielding my broadsword. I felt almost unbearably hard.

"You will not pose for me but you will for your cousin?" I asked, remembering that I'd asked her to pose as I had. And then, unable to let the vision of her go, added, "Can I get a copy of it?" I sounded hoarse even to my own ears. I imagined a poster of it in my home, a framed copy of it on my desk at Fantgasia--at least until we could make our own version of it.

This woman. She is a temptress. A Valkyrie, taking me to heaven. A siren, luring me toward the rocks. I would go willingly.

To my delight, my little Valkyrie shrugged and, blushing, said, "I'll see if I can get a copy. Consider it my Valentine's Day present to you."

**

* * *

End note: **There is actually a real series of Viking romance novels in which one of the character time travels. They are by Sandra Hill. While the titles I pulled out are real, I haven't read them, so the dialog is totally made up. It's probably better written than my sad attempt at romance-novel speak. Still, I thought time-traveling Vikings was perfect for Eric. Don't you? What do you think of his presents?


	16. Chapter 16: Mine Again

**A/N:** Another long chapter. I hope you enjoy it. Work has been crazy and the holidays are coming, so I'm posting a little slower--or I expect I will. I think an understanding is coming between our Viking and telepath, though.

**

* * *

Disclaimer:** I do not own Sookie or Eric. I just do bad things with them.

**

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Chapter 16: Mine Again**

**Eric's POV**

Sookie sat up on her knees, rested her head on her arm, and turned to look me directly in the eye. It has been a rare human who has done this willingly. Her bravery made me proud.

Her skin glowed amber in the firelight and her hair shone gold, light sparking off of it. I took a strand in my fingers and it was warm.

"Tell me about your life, Eric," she said softly. "Or, well, your vampire existence. I know you vampires are secretive types, but I wonder about it. What's the best place you've been in your 1,000 years?"

Her eyes were wide and heat was coming off of her in waves. I wanted to say the best place I'd ever been was inside her. Or, barring that, in her arms the night she found me on the road and took me in. I knew she wouldn't accept that answer, genuine as it may be, so I flashed to all the places I've been. Most did not bear recollection, or were too gruesome for her. At least, I wanted to shield her from them, though I knew she would be brave enough to have stood in the middle of any of them.

"It is hard to say," I started. I took her free hand and threaded my fingers with hers, studying her warmth entwined with my coldness. I thought of that fire on the steppes, and the poet.

"I remember once, we were wandering," I started, bringing up the vision of the open plains and tall grasses and warm wind whipping through the bonfire. "I'd only been vampire for two centuries, and I was still with my Maker."

I shivered remembering how I had known him, how I had come to love him, in some ways.

"At the time, we did not stay put in one place," I continued, caressing the back of her hand with my thumb. I stared into the fire. "I could not have had a home as I have now. I could not know anyone for more than a few years, aside from the vampires in my nest." _I could not have known you, met you, fallen in love with you._ "The risk of discovery was too great.

"My Maker had taught me that the easiest way to find donors was on battlefields, so I spent my formative vampire years feeding from the deserters, wounded and warriors of the Crusades. No one would question why the men disappeared, and casualties were so high that no one bothered investigating how the men died. Of course there were other nests on the battlefield as well, and I often defended my kill to the point of war with rival nests." I was staring into the fire, the bloodlust of those centuries snaking through me. "Of course, many of my kind were made on the battlefield, turned because of their fighting prowess. My Maker loved warriors."

That was how Ignatius came to be part of our nest. I shook myself from my reverie. _That_ certainly was not the best place I'd ever been, though I had found the warmth of the desert comforting on my newly cold skin.

"We had only left the Middle East at the conclusion of the Crusades, wandering the near east seeking small skirmishes, feeding on soldiers too weak to escape, or warriors who did not realize we were vampire until too late.

"At one point we landed in what is now called Turkey, but then it was part of the Empire. It was beautiful. The prairies there were lush places, though the air was dry."

I turned to her and caressed her warm chin with the back of my finger, smiling and meeting her eye. "I do not know if you would have liked it. You thrive in the humidity."

I ran my finger along her cheek. Here eyes were curious and tender, fierce. I imagined her warmed by that bonfire of so many centuries before, her flaxen hair whipping about her face in the warm wind. I would have taken her in front of that fire, with the poet still singing.

"We had been traveling for many nights, and had come to a small encampment. On the steppes there are very few places to go to ground during daylight, but my Maker allowed me to glamour a local woman into keeping me during the day and he allowed me to keep her as a pet. She fed me nightly and I was allowed her physical pleasure by my Maker. It was my first taste of a woman since I had been turned."

I could sense Sookie tense and I smiled at her. She need not pity me, or worry for the woman. I have been free of my Maker for nearly 700 years now, and I gave the woman great pleasure in exchange for her blood. I kissed my Bonded's hand and shook my head.

"One night, she brought me to a bonfire where a holy man was singing," I said, turning back to the fire and pulling her close, relishing her warmth flowing into me. "It was beautiful. I picked up their language quickly. Latin was common in the Empire, and I knew it, but he spoke Arabic. It's a beautiful, poetic language, and he sang his poetry, which was about love and God.

"I still remember the enormity of the sky that night. I have always loved the sky. In my human life, we used it to navigate. But I found in that night, hearing that poetry, that I felt, for the first time in centuries, the wonder and vastness of a bigger world. I had spent so much of my existence feeding and fighting, battling for the right to eat and survive, that ideas of God and oneness were alien to me. But that is what the poet sang of. It reminded me that there was more to existence than survival. It was a great gift."

I stared into the fire for another moment, pulling her close. _And now I know that there's even more to my existence_, I thought, kissing her forehead. I thought of those few days I spent with her in this house, of the joy and happiness I felt for the first time in centuries, of the fulfillment I thought lost to me. I turned and caught that look in her eye, the look she had had last night, when I told her about my ambush: fierce and tender at once, longing.

I scanned her face, absorbing it as my cold body absorbed her heat. I smiled a small smile at her. _Thank you, gods, for this gift._ I leaned down and kissed her softly, holding her chin and caressing her hand.

"It sounds peaceful," she said thoughtfully. I nodded. "You don't remember what he sang, do you? I mean you couldn't--it was so many years ago."

I raised one eyebrow at her and smiled. Ah, but she underestimates me. My chest throbbed with want, the pressure there building. I held her close and pulled her hair away from her neck, running the back of my hand along that soft spot. I did a quick calculation. Could she hear the poem I sang to her last night without running? I thought not. She was not yet prepared for that level of honesty. I decided on another that might also please her.

I leaned in, kissed her and then began.

_How very close_

_is your soul with mine_

_I know for sure_

_everything you think_

_goes through my mind._

I stopped, momentarily derailed by an unaccustomed grief at the loss of the bond. I knew she would hear it differently.

*

_I am with you_

_now and doomsday_

_not like a host_

_caring for you_

_at a feast alone_

*

I caressed her arm, held her fingers gently between my own, and brushed my lips over her knuckles as she had mine the night before.

*

_With you I am happy_

_all the times--_

_the time I offer my life_

_or the time_

_you gift me your love_

*

My heart lurched despite itself. This human is so apt to run. Would she deny me? Would she find a new reason to escape? Her eyes were wide and shocked and seemed to be filling with tears. I kissed her wet eyelashes and continued, careful to move slowly and not frighten her.

*

_Offering my life_

_is a profitable venture_

_each life I give_

_you pay in turn_

_a hundred lives again_

*

I kissed her.

*

_In this house_

_there are a thousand_

_dead and still souls_

_making you stay_

_as this will be yours_

*

I looked around the room and back to my beloved, knowing how trapped she now was, hoping she would be free soon.

*

_a handful of earth_

_cries aloud_

_i used to be hair or_

_i used to be bones_

*

I laughed to myself. That dry earth could have been me, but it was not. I had prevailed, fought and won many a battle to be sitting here tonight with this 27-year-old human who has staked a vampire and shot a shifter and rescued me as I had her. I took her lips with mine again because it was my due.

*

_And just the moment_

_when you are all confused_

_leaps forth a voice_

_hold me close_

_I'm love and_

_I'm always yours_

*

I looked at her, my expression carefully blank, weary that it would spook her more than the poem already had. She seemed stunned into paralysis. Tears slid down her cheek. I did not wish to chase after her this night, especially in pain.

Still, internally, a giddiness welled up in me I had not felt for at least a year, at least since she was last mine. I would read her such a poem nightly if it would please her, if she would not deny me.

She remained still and I rubbed her back with my hand gently, enjoying the feel of her heart beating into my palm. It was pounding heavily now. Her eyes were darting around my face, looking for something. Irritation flashed through me. What more could she want to know? Had I not just laid it bare for her?

"You don't have to fight me, Sookie," I whispered to her finally, tightening my grip on her. "Let go. I have you."

**Sookie's POV**

I didn't want to look at him, but I'd be damned if I could tear myself away from his eyes. Those eyes. He seemed so calm. So serene, almost. So sure of himself--of course. But also tentative assessing.

His words--or the poet's words, I guessed--whirred through my mind. _And just when you are all confused..._ Yep, that was me. I was... confused. I thought back to the bath, to my jumbled thoughts. I hated to think what another telepath would find if it he looked into my head. A snake pit maybe, snarly and woven through with thoughts that could sting.

I felt Eric's arms tight around me. The heavy weight of them reassured me. I put my hands on his chest, but I couldn't seem to relax. I... I shouldn't trust him, not after all he'd done and failed to do. I shouldn't have let him into my house, let him woo me. But here I was. It felt like a moral failing. Suddenly, I was mad. Trust Eric to... To what? I asked myself. To say the perfect thing? To be a big vampire dreamboat? To make it impossible for me to think, to understand what he was saying?

Yeah. That one. And to seem perfect and disappear again, more like. Oh, Lord. I don't want to think about that right now.

I looked into his face.

_Just when you are all confused/leaps forth a voice/Hold me close/I'm love/and I'm always yours._

Wasn't that always how Eric was with me--well, except when he was nowhere to be foun? Always leaping forth, telling me, "I've got you." Sure, we were usually in the middle of a hailstorm of bullets or Weres or stakes but still... The words rang in my mind. I smiled. It had been fun, as much as any of those things could be, when he was around.

I looked at him again and his expression hadn't changed. A pressure built in my chest, warm and light. His look was unreadable. I caressed his face, wishing for the certainty I saw there.

_I'm always yours._

Was he...? Did he...? The thought scared me too much. I had to look away.

"Eric..."

It's not that I wanted to keep fighting him, but something cold slithered around my belly and pooled in my lungs. I felt like I was drowning. I had to fight if I was gonna survive. And if there's one thing I know, it's how to make it out of a fight alive. Battered and bruised, but alive.

I buried my face in his soft chest and was sure my makeup was ruined now. Seems like I keep finding myself in this pose, clinging to Eric like a life preserver. Ha, I thought sadly. A vampire life preserver. I had surely lost my mind. Oh well, was all I could think. Oh well. If this was how I was going to climb out of this pain, I'd keep holding on to him just like this. I hugged myself to him, wrapping my arms around him urgently. He folded his arms around me more tightly and I realized I was shaking again. Surely I wasn't 27. Surely I was 10, 7, huddled and alone. But I wasn't alone. He _did_ have me. I wasn't going anywhere, and that thought both relaxed and tensed me.

Oh, but I was a mess.

I rubbed my face against the soft fabric of his sweater and the hard muscle underneath and wondered what Gran would say at a time like this. She'd liked Bill so much. Would she have liked Eric? Would she approve of his ways? I thought not. I remembered her patting my hand in high school when I told her about the awful things the boys were thinking about me. _Sookie, dear, pay them no mind. You'll see, the right man will make you feel like a queen._ I looked up at Eric, trying to catch a peek without him noticing. It didn't work and he smiled arrogantly at me. I just knew she could help me figure out my feelings. If only she were here. If only... I shook my head, trying to shake that last image of her out of my head, my body going steel straight and just as cold. I closed my eyes and breathed deep.

He smelled so good I had to press my face flush against him. Something about this smell made the cold slithery thing loosen its grip a touch. I felt... tenderness. So tender I was raw. My sore spots could just rip open at any second if I made the wrong move. So I held still in Eric's arms. I looked around the room, darkened by the dying light of the fire. I imagined Eric sitting at a fire, hearing that poem in its original language, getting a glimpse of a different world, one that wasn't just death and carnage and survival.

I squeezed him a little. Maybe this was a little of how he felt. A glimmer of a different life, that it could be bigger than he thought, that maybe he wasn't dead--finally dead--after all.

Maybe I wasn't either.

I a tiny, warm bubble of hope burst to my surface at the thought. I wanted to raise up and look at him, and I could feel his lips and chin brushing against the top of my head.

Suddenly I became aware of another sensation. I was tender but I was also... happy. Flushed with excitement. And none of it was because of the bond. It was because of the vampire snuggled up against me. I closed my eyes and enjoyed it for a moment, and thought, _Maybe I could stop fighting. Maybe for just right now._ I didn't have to answer any big questions tonight. Neither did he. I hoped he wouldn't.

In the distance, I heard the little tinny radio in my room. A Mariah Carey song I loved came on, "Stay the Night."

Maybe he could tell I was listening, because Eric disentangled us and slowly stood.

"Dance, my lover?" Eric asked, holding out his hand to me.

God Bless Eric for not forcing the issue. As thanks, I rose, my legs full of pangs as I stood. They'd fallen asleep and I shook them out. Eric reached behind the couch, which I was starting to suspect was secretly his bag of tricks, and brought out a small, weirdly shaped white stereo. He plugged it in and turned it on with a tiny little remote, and the music was suddenly louder and richer, already tuned to WDED. What a surprise.

By the time he got back, my legs were starting to feel human again (ha!), and he placed his arms around my waist gently. I was shy at first, unsettled by the poem, by that look in his eyes, by that cold, dead thing inside me. But slowly the music worked on me and so did the wicked glint in Eric's eyes as he encouraged me to shake my bon bon. How could I not oblige? I swished my hips in time with the slow, sweet rhythm. He swayed a little with me but seemed to prefer to just watch me hungrily.

What can I say? If it's just for tonight, if this isn't the dance that will decide everything then this tall, sexy vampire could just move against me as much as he wanted. I took hold of his hips and coaxed him to meet mine. He let me lead him in my movements, swaying my hips this way and that, dipping down a little and shimmying back up. Eric's fangs slid out a little at that and I felt a surge of power. I began to relax into the music, into the familiar movements. If there was one thing I could always do it was dance, and I was glad to discover that the fairies hadn't taken that from me. And feeling Eric pressed up against me I guess didn't hurt either. I raised my arms up and spun around, placing his hands on my hips as I ground against him to the beat.

That poem hung in my mind: _How very close/is your soul with mine/I know for sure/everything you think/goes through my mind._ Well, I for one was pleased as punch that I didn't know what was going through Eric's mind right now--and that my mind was giving me a moment of peace.

I laced my fingers with his as I slowly edged my way down his body and back up. I felt better than I'd felt in a month (well, clothed, anyway... I might have smiled. I'm a warm blooded American woman, after all.). Eric's hands found their way down my thighs and back up, sliding my dress up a little with them. I pressed the dress back down but also pressed back into him, enjoying his... response to our movements. I shivered in delight.

I reached an arm behind me and arched back into him, stroking along his neck. I felt Eric rumble with pleasure. I felt his fangs tickling my neck and laughed in spite of myself. And when his hand caressed my stomach, it sent sharp pangs of desire right to the parts that needed him most. I closed my eyes. This felt right. I sighed happily.

But too soon, the music faded.

"Hey all you night animals, Connie the Corpse here with love songs till dawn," came the smooth voice of the undead DJ. "We're half way through our coupled songs for couples." I spun around toward ERic and pulled him down into a kiss. I was liking this stop-fighting approach, and so was Eric, judging by the growl that came out of his throat. "Now let's continue with our mated offerings, two songs in a row by your favorite artists, for all you supernatural sweeties out there. This one goes out to all of you staking a claim tonight. Mariah Carey and 'Mine Again.'"

She said "staking" like it was the funniest thing in the world. Those vamps. Such cut ups. Literally. I grimaced.

I shook my head and look up at Eric, smiling suddenly.

But as the music started and Eric folded me in his arms again, I heard the lyrics. I felt like WDED was making fun of me. _Maybe you could be mine again?_ Were they _kidding_?

"This is one of the singers you enjoy," I heard and felt Eric rumble. I nodded against him, letting my hands fall on his perfect butt. We swayed in time. I concentrated on just the feel of him, solid and strong under my hands and my cheek, brushing little sparks against my hips and thighs and breasts where we made contact. I tried real hard to push away the deep sadness that threatened to take me, but the music wasn't helping. I remembered when he was mine, when he was my Eric. I let my hands drift under his sweater and touch his cool skin, and curved my hip against his thigh.

Eric laughed throatily and pulled my hands out from under his shirt, taking them into proper dancing stance--one hand clasped in his, the other placed on his big ole shoulder. I looked up at him, feeling weightless. He was so beautiful. So sure of himself. He started leading me around the room slowly, pressing his hand into my shoulder to turn me this way and that. He always was a good lead. It reminded me of dancing with him at Fangtasia, when he'd asked me for about the 20th time what had happened when we were together. I'd been so scared to tell him the truth, afraid of giving him leverage over me because of Debbie Pelt. _But let's be honest,_ I told myself sternly. _You were scared of giving him leverage over you for something else, too._ I felt my heart rip a little and leaned in to Eric, we swung our hips with the music. Eric's lips caressed my hair.

And here we were, in my house again, and he was sweet--again. Almost like... Well, almost like he was my Eric. My ripped heart throbbed to think it, but I couldn't deny it. I leaned in just a little and kissed his chest. Eric rumbled in his chest and led me around the couch and spun me around slowly in time with the music.

Mariah sang, "It's irrelevant to dwell on the past..." and I choked back a bitter laugh.

Here I couldn't _stop_ dwelling on the past. I looked up at the vampire who was in my arms just now, and felt that old, rusty happiness flood back. He moved me close and spun us, his leg snaking between mine and making me flush. He leaned me back and pressed into me, nuzzling into my throat. I wanted him so much, I wanted to feel alive. I wanted to climb out of this hole. I choked back the emotions that flowed over me and threatened to suck me under. I clung to Eric's hands, feeling his big hand holding me securely at the small of my back.

When he pulled me up he had that look in his eye again, that haunted, tender look. My stomach clenched and oozed. And then he closed his eyes and kissed me softly as he led me around the other side of the couch, levitating a little as he did it. The surprise of it made me cry out and won me a flash of fang from Eric. To anyone else, it might be terrifying, but it turned my center into liquid. When we landed, he released me from his arms and twirled me, pulling me back to him expertly.

I pressed into him, loving his smell, loving his body. Loving _this_.

I followed his lead as the song reached its end, Mariah crooning about a time when I was his and he was mine and how maybe--maybe--we could bring that back to life.

Eric turned us all the way around and dipped me leaning over me so close I could feel my breath blow back against me off his skin.

I caught his eyes and couldn't say what my face was doing. I just knew the longing I felt, the steeling my body was doing instinctively. I leaned forward that extra inch and brushed my lips against his. That was all it took. Suddenly he was devouring me with his mouth, licking and teasing with his fangs and nibbling and almost--almost--making me forget about that nagging sadness, that deep hole that was just waiting for him to forget all this and go back to his life. The fact that I could think anything with any small part of my brain when he kissed me like that--well, I must have been real out of sorts. It was just a little thread of pain, but it held on, refusing to give up the ghost.

When he finally pulled back, he was smiling lewdly, relaxed, and I was wondering what he would do to me next. I wished he would do something so that little thread of pain would fray and break off completely. I leaned toward him and kissed him, wanting it. Wanting to shake it off. He just watched me, his eyes sparkling in the fading fire. He was so beautiful. Pressure built in my chest. I wrapped one leg around his as he pulled me back up.

I couldn't speak as he set us on our feet. Another song started and Eric pulled me to him softly, holding me in more of a hug than a dance--though we did sway to the slow music. I reached a hand up off his chest and caressed the nape of his neck, fiddling with the hair there. I was fighting back that thread, but it was winding its way around my heart and squeezing. I tensed, so mad that I couldn't control it, couldn't stop it, couldn't seem to heal it.

I wanted to break open. I wanted to run away. I wanted to stay here forever. I might have left my body, I felt so weightless and disconnected. I found myself in that deep hole I'd always managed to keep covered pretty tight. I just knew if I moved, I'd start crying again and I was good sick and tired of bawling. Eric's hand smoothed down my back and a deep hum in his chest matched the music.

For a lack of anything else to do, and because I knew it would seem nuts for me to run from the room now, I held still, feeling the burn of muscles that longed to flex and flee. I wasn't broken this time--just flooded with so many old feelings that I didn't know whether to fling myself at him or hit him as hard as I could. I settled for balling up my hands on Eric's sides, pulling the fabric there into my fists. It felt good to hold him close this way--to make him stay, though I knew if he wanted to pull away, there wasn't a thing I could do to change it. If I squeezed a little harder on the balls of fabric in my hand, then it was just reflex.

I breathed slow and deep and concentrated on the simplicity and vibration of Eric's humming all over my chest. It did lull me a little, but a part of me didn't want to be lulled, screaming for me to do something, to pull away, but the muscles that had ached to move now locked into place and insisted that I stay here, feeling his arm around me and one soothing hand on my back. I closed my eyes and shifted my weight from foot to foot absently.

I took deep, steady breaths to soothe myself and imagined that Eric had no memories but of me, that he loved me and would leave everything for me. That he would be here every day when I came home from work, and that he would listen and laugh and want me forever.

**Eric's POV**

Sookie had left me.

I could feel it. All her delicious fight and energy had drained out of her as surely as if I had drained her of all her succulent blood. I held her close, hummed to her and massaged her back, waiting for her to come back to me. I refused to let her up. Refused to release her, knowing she would leave me, push me away if I relented in the slightest. I had made that mistake before. I would not err again.

I felt a sharp frustration pass through me. She was intractable. I had suffered the indignities of this ridiculous human mating ritual. I had researched its customs. I had instructed that songs by her favorite singer be played this night. I had found gifts that were mere trivialities, notable only in their banality. I had not even been allowed to send a true bouquet of flowers.

And grudgingly, I had even accepted that for this night, despite its advertisement as a day for lovers, I would not have her because it was considered bad form for people who wanted one another to have each other. Drivel. Hypocritical, nonsensical drivel. Thank the gods for vampires, that we should thin out this species somewhat and spare them their irrational minds.

But there was one irrational mind I did concern myself with, and I sensed it was warring with itself. This in itself was a phenomenon worth noting. I had never noted human body language except to note threats, willing donors, or sex partners. But now I found that I knew Sookie's distress not in the bond but in how her body tensed under me when it should have molded to me willingly. Or how her soft expression of happiness had crumbled to a vacant grief when I finally saw her face at the end of our dance. It should have been a moment of triumph and passion. Instead, my little warrior kissed, bracing for retreat. Worst, when she looked up at me, she had that same lost, searching fear in her eyes she had the other night, when she thought I had come here merely to repay some favor. She looked at me as if my kindness had injured her.

And yet, there was another side to her--the Sookie I knew, the passionate, sensual, confident human who abandoned herself to how well we fit together, to our joint movements. She had loved it. I could see it. She had offered herself to me, bending her neck to my mouth with abandon, as aroused by the process as I was. And in that dress! That tight red dress, held up by only flimsy bows, like a present just for me. And yet I could not have her.

She would wear this dress again and I would have her in every room in this house in every position in my vast repertoire. It will be done. She will be mine.

But there was another piece of my Sookie--a large, frustrating piece--making itself known now. Her stubbornness. I had shared too much of myself. Whereas my confidences had won Sookie's passion last night, tonight the poem has spooked her. It wasn't even half of my feelings for her, and yet I could sense that she wanted to hide, leave me, deny me my rights as her Bonded. She was not ready. I was glad of my decision to defer the more baldly adoring poem. Who knows what damage that would have done, I thought grimly.

I brushed my hand up under her hair and stroked her neck as she had done mine. I massaged a little.

I could hold her here until the temper passed. I could arouse her and remind her of her desire for me, ridiculous human conventions be damned. I could recite another poem. I could speak to her in another language--I knew she loved that. I could engage her in a conversation. I could offer her the other gifts I have prepared for her.

My reverie was broken when my Bonded spoke against my chest. Her voice was tight, barely a whisper, and her lips moved softly against me.

"Did... Did you miss me?"

I leaned down and pressed my nose and mouth into the shiny silkiness of her hair, sucking in a deep breath, growing hard and gripping her more tightly. If I survived to be 5,000 years old, I would never forget those five days. I would never forget the look in her eyes when I took her hand in that pathetic car of hers and offered to leave everything, offered to be her mate. It was the same look she had just given me. The same look of resignation, forfeiture, grief.

"Yes," I growled into her hair.

After a moment, I felt her nod against me. Just one, sharp, sure nod and she pulled away and looked up at me. I stroked her hair away from her face, enjoying its silken texture and the fierceness of her expression. My Sookie, it appeared, was back. I ran my fingers over them, relishing her warm beauty. She opened her mouth and bit down on my fingertips, just a little. Just enough to make me growl. The sensation sizzled its way from my fingers to my cock. Her little pink tongue dipped out from her mouth to stroke my fingertips and I growled.

No more fights this night. I would not have it. And by the set to my Bonded's jaw, neither would she.

I leaned down and she took my mouth. It was not gentle. It was not meek. It was as strong as our passion. Bond or no bond. Mine. She had been and she would be again. Perhaps she was beginning to realize this.

**Sookie's POV **

I do believe that's what my romance novels would call a "soul-scorching kiss." Yow. Yum. _Damn_.

By the time we pulled apart, I was gasping for breath and I found my whole middle had melted and was sloshing around drunkenly against my insides.

"Are you ready for dessert, my lover?" he whispered next to my mouth. Hadn't I just had it? I wanted to ask, and then imagined him laid out naked on my kitchen table. If I smiled wickedly, well, I blame the dancing. Or the wine. Or Mariah. Or, oh, hell. But I realized with a start that I was hungry again. I glanced at the clock on the VCR. 1:30 a.m. Wow. How long had we been kissing?

I looked at him and I nodded and he lowered us back to the floor. I couldn't understand what he had against the couch, but I had to admit it was kind of cozy on the floor. I reached back and pulled the afghan down over my lap. Eric glanced at it with disdain and then rose on his knees to add another few logs to the fire. I tilted my head and watched his butt while he moved. I couldn't help it. Award-winning, remember? I sighed. Whatever that just was--that kiss, that relief after my fretting--I wanted more of it, always.

I bit my lip.

"Wait here, lover," he said, glancing back at me, catching my ogling and preening a little. He swaggered off into the kitchen.

A moment later, I heard a popthat scared the bejeesus our of me. My heart was pounding out of my chest and I was trying to wipe away the sweat that appeared on my forehead when he came back, strutting like a hunter back with his prey. My throat went dry. I guess he was, and I guess I was his prey. I swallowed hard and watched is big old frame move quickly toward me. He lowered himself before me and I saw he was carrying a bottle and a cool plate from the fridge. He leaned back against the leg of the couch, spreading his legs and motioning for me to sit between them. I swallowed. I got a few ideas about him just then and none would be Christian to say out loud.

I snuggled against him and my body remembered the last time we'd sat like this. These were better circumstances but he was more naked then, so it kind of balanced out. He closed his arms around me and I luxuriated against him. I shook a little and I couldn't say why. _Safe_, I breathed to myself. _Safe. Finally safe._ I could lay like this all night, I thought, and he could speak to me in that foreign language--any of the dozens he knew--and I just knew I'd sleep well. When I opened my eyes, though, he was holding the plate up to my face. It was a platter of the biggest, plumpest strawberries I'd ever seen, dipped in chocolate. I licked my lips. I'd never had chocolate-dipped strawberries before, and certainly never thought a vampire would be the one to feed them to me. Eric. He'd sure done his research.

I smiled up at him and kissed him quickly.

"Select one, lover," he said, kissing the nape of my neck. My vision went a little blurry.

"Um..." I tried to focus on the treats in front of me while the treat behind me made my heart jiggle and jump. "Can I have some wine?"

He placed the plate on my lap and I felt him reach over for the bottle. In a moment, he held a glass in front of me, but it wasn't the red wine from earlier. It was champagne. The popping sound. Now it all made sense.

"I understand that this is a customary combination--strawberries and champagne," Eric explained, as if he were discussing why he bought a certain brand of paper clips. But then I knew that was crazy. Eric wouldn't buy his own paper clips.

He tried to hold the glass to my mouth and tilt it up so I could drink like earlier, but I was done being fed for the night. At least that way.

"Thank you all the same, sweetie, but I think I can hold the cup myself," I said. "My hand's not broken."

Not anymore at least. Then I thought about Eric's broken hands and winced at my thoughtlessness.

But when I turned to Eric, he had a superior smile on his face. Oh brother, what was it now?

He didn't say anything but held up a strawberry for me.

"I said I can..."

"My lover," he said lowly, his words tickling my ear and making my head go foggy. "I do not eat any of this... It would give me great _pleasure_ to assist you."

The way he said pleasure decided it for me. I guess it couldn't hurt...

I turned so he could watch as he teased the tip of the strawberry against my lips and I let it in. I tried to make it good for him, letting my tongue slip out and catch some crumbling chocolate, sucking a little on the berry, making little moaning sounds.

Eric growled. I blushed. We went on like this for a while, with him dipping the berry in my champagne and feeding it to me occassionally. Once, when the juice of the berry dribbled to my chin, Eric leaned in and, lickety-split, ran his cool tongue up to my mouth. When he got there, I could feel his fangs pressing behind his lips. I groaned. Eric rumbled, pulling me to him to press against the growing strain in his pants.

They were very juicy strawberries.

I'd never been treated like this before--or at least just now I couldn't remember ever having been. Bill held me close and treated me sweet, and looked at me, even just a month ago, with an expression of undying (ha) love. It's not that I hadn't been loved, but something about seeing a big old Viking vampire carefully feeding a human strawberries softened me. I knew what damage those hands could do--and now I knew how they had been damaged, too--but here he was pressing them gently against food he didn't eat, licking up the running juices, looking at me softly, even if some of his look bordered on the predatory. I couldn't say I minded. Plus, he'd seen all of me in the last week, in the worst possible way, and he'd stayed. I caressed his cheek and thought I would turn right to goo around him if Eric didn't hold me upright.

I found I wanted to just watch his face. I wished I could watch him sleep suddenly, see his face this relaxed, watch him leisurely, without worrying of what he thought of my peeping at him.

"I bet you were a beautiful baby," I whispered, out of nowhere. I had visions of him as a little tow-headed toddler, tottering around in whatever the Viking version of Garanimals was and a little play sword. Or heck, maybe they gave toddlers real swords back then, and he'd be wandering around terrorizing the livestock and bewitching the women. Bam-Bam--that was him. I laughed a little and ran a finger along his cheek. Fond, I felt fond. I bet even as an infant he knew his effect on women.

He had that cat-that-ate-the canary look again.

"I don't remember," he said simply, running his eyes over me. "There were no photos then, lover."

The way he said lover made my heart pound. He leaned in and I thought he was going to kiss me, and I was so ready for him to.

That warm pressure built in my chest and I needed him so. I leaned up and beat him to the kiss. I was so close to coming undone completely that a terror shot through me and I was suddenly tired. I leaned back against him. I put the plate down and took his hand in mine, curling to my side against him. I shucked off my shoes.

"Thank you," I whispered, my cheek against his silent chest. "This has been a wonderful first date. I might be spoiled for all other first dates."

I felt his grip tighten on me and had to laugh, at least silently. Possessive as ever. I couldn't say it didn't please me, though. And then I shoved that thought aside to have this moment of peace.

"Oh hush," I said, rubbing his chest and bringing his hand up to kiss a cold knuckle. "Now what's next? Are we going to an outlook to make out? I'll let you get to second... maybe third base." Or all the way home, over and over again, I thought, and laughed.

I had to chuckle at my grade school analogy. Still, it felt a little like it to me. I'd never had many dates in high school, and certainly could never have stood getting this close with a human guy back then--hearing all his thoughts, his opinions about my body, his boredom, his plans to tell all his buddies how far he got with Cray Sookie. Yep, this was the high school date I never had. Heck, this was every high school girl's dream date--though maybe minus the fangs.

Eric didn't answer and when I looked up he seemed puzzled. I laughed. I guess no matter how modern a vampire might seem--and Eric did a good job of trying to stay modern--they were still of their own age. I shook my head. I didn't want to explain what first, second or third base were.

... On the other hand.

"Oh, Eric, they're just slang for different levels of..." How can I put this so he'll understand? "... Foreplay."

The light spark in Eric's eye and I knew I was in trouble. I grinned in anticipation. In a moment, I was leaning back and Eric was poised over me. _Oh goodie._ My lust was big. Very, very big.

"What are these bases, lover?" he said wickedly as he stroked my side. He seemed like Dr. Evil suddenly, stroking that hairless cat--with me being the cat. I bit back my giggle.

"Well," I started, teasing. "First base is french kissing--kissing with your tongue."

Eric smiled a feral, fangy smile at me. In a moment I felt the body part in question tickle my lips. I opened my mouth and Eric's tongue did deliciously bad, intoxicating things to me. It was a long, deep kiss and it went on and on and I wanted to call uncle, but somehow I couldn't speak. All I could do was suck on his tongue and murmur little sounds of happiness.

By the time he broke the kiss, my hand had somehow wound it's way into his hair and was trying to hold him to me. When he leaned back, I had no trouble leaning after him, nipping his lips with my teeth. I heard him growl.

He just stared at me for a long minute, his eyes dark and hooded and dangerous in a way that I knew meant good things for me. I was still catching my breath and squirming a little as he stared at me, lion to antelope.

"And second base, lover?" he asked in a growl. Oh, I mean... I... _Lordy_.

My chest was heaving and I absently brushed a few hairs off of it. This got Eric's attention, which was good because I needed a moment to collect myself. He leaned down and kissed the tops of my breasts, where the hair had been. Nope, not helping me collect myself at all. Not.. helping. Oh.

"Second base... is touching a girl's boobs," I said, and I watched as Eric's hand deftly traveled up my side and place one big palm over the closest breast. I watched him squeeze and felt myself tingle and swell and pebble up under him. His mouth was still at my cleavage and he licked between my breasts. "Sometimes under the clothes," I added hopefully.

I saw his hand twitch but he didn't reach up and untie my dress. I sighed as his thumb toyed with my almost painfully hard nipple and his mouth sought out the other.

Lowly, Eric muttered, "Only second base? This is... These are the finest prize. Lovely. Perfect."

Well, I didn't know about all that, but I groaned as his mouth closed over a nipple through my dress all the same. I had far too many clothes on and so did he. I reached for the bow on my shoulder, but Eric, who I could swear was too absorbed in my breasts to notice, darted his hand out before I could reach it.

"No," he growled against my breast, and the vibration there made my whole body shudder. He held my hand gently but firmly. "This is the first date. I will not ruin it with sex."

I gaped at him. Gran would call it "catching flies." This was Eric. Always-trying-to-get-you-in-bed, always-with-a-come-on, always-ready _Eric_. Sex was his middle name. And maybe his first name and his suffix to boot.

He twined his fingers with mine and placed my hand over my breast, his hand on top of mine, and squeezed. I groaned in irritation.

"It won't ruin anything." _It will be perfect,_ I thought.

Who would have thought that Eric would be a Rules vampire?

"I read a phrase, Sookie," he said, raising his head from my breast a little drunkenly, his eyes lazy and also a little irritated. I would have smiled, but I didn't like where this was going. "'Boys only want one thing?' I was led to believe that first dates ought to be at least somewhat chaste, and, asinine as the custom may be, I will not have you thinking I only want you for one thing..."

Oh right. Chaste. Says the vampire who's treating my breasts like an all-you-can-eat buffet. I would have rolled my eyes, but his fingers found my nipple through the fabric and chose that moment to squeeze a little.

"Even if that one thing is..." And here he eyed me like I was a big ole eclair. "The best I've ever had."

Gah.

You could excuse a girl for losing her ever-loving mind at that point, couldn't you? If I could have spontaneously combusted just then, I was sure my panties and the rest of me would have been up in flames. As it was, my head might have fallen back. I had to close my eyes. I heard a tortured groaning, and I think it may have come from me.

Eric just chuckled.

And just like that, I let my irritation carry me. I pushed against him and he let me up. I watched as his nostrils flared as I stood. I knew he was smelling my... excitement. But that was just fine with me. If I had to suffer, so should he.

"Now listen, buster," I said. "I'm not going on with this if you're just going to work me into a lather and leave me. You did that last night and you'll not do it again."

Eric raised an eyebrow at me--a little human giving him orders. I rolled my eyes. So Eric. Since Eric was sitting, he was about at waist height with me. I had a flash of leaning forward and pressing my hips into his face and then walking off, but I knew I wouldn't get away with it--and maybe I didn't want to. And I also knew that it would be torture if I told him about third and he... ah... refused to round to home.

Eric stood slowly, tormenting me, and then took my hand.

"Lover," he started, in that dangerous voice of his. "One thing I know about lovemaking is that anticipation makes the act all the sweeter. Tonight, we will not have sex. I will end the date properly by walking you to your door."

It sounds sweet but the way he drawled it made it sound just lewd. He ran his hand over my side and down to my butt squeezing lightly and daring me to pitch a fit. I scowled and crossed my arms over my chest.

"Yeah," I snorted. "One thing."

I wasn't sure what to do. I was fit to burst, but I wouldn't give Eric the satisfaction of building up my anticipation any higher than he already had. And I certainly wasn't going to beg. I stepped back from him and considered it. Eric watched me with one eyebrow raised. A challenge.

Fine.

Two can play at this game--and I doubted the vampire really wanted to stop anyway.

I took a half step toward him. "Would you like to know what third base is, big boy?" I asked, grabbing his hand.

"Big boy?" he smiled down at me, his fangs glinting in the firelight. He took a half step toward me and now we were nearly touching. He leered. "_Very_ big boy."

I placed his hand on my leg.

He looked at his hand on my leg and just the tip of his delicious pink tongue dipped out of his mouth. I stifled a moan.

He raised his eyebrow in that annoying _go on_ gesture he has. Would it kill him to speak?

I slowly moved his hand up my inner thigh and held his gaze. When he got to the top of my thighs, he could feel my wetness and I couldn't be embarrassed just then. I just... couldn't. He growled. I worked real hard to stay standing and not lean into him. I did find myself breathing in little puffs through my mouth, though.

His fingers twitched on my thigh and a fire bloomed in me. So close. I caught my breath but kept looking at him.

"What's third?" He asked throatily, his eyes burning into mine. He was smiling. No where close to losing his composure, the jerk. Meanwhile, I was struggling to keep myself from pulling his hand up that extra inch or wiggling down to his fingers. "Sookie."

Oh, the way that vampire could say my name.

"Third is," I started shakily, moving his fingers up just enough to trace the edge of my panties, daring him. His eyes were completely dilated now, and I could see that he wasn't so calm himself, if the bulge in those tight jeans were any indication. "Third is... touching... Um, feeling.... a woman's.... Oh."

His finger twitched up, just a tiny flash, and sent a lightning bolt through my body. The expression on Eric's face at my reaction made me want to punch him.

Hard as it may have been, as unable as I might have thought myself of it, I stepped back from him and pulled his hand away. Then I smoothed my skirt, trying to smooth down my nerves with it. I looked up at him.

"OK, mister," I said, collecting myself. "It's almost 2:30 a.m., and I'm still human and healing. I think it's time you walk me back to my room."

He flinched just slightly, almost more of a shiver than a flinch and then took my hand. Holding it, he caressed my wrist with his wet fingers and raised my hand to his lips and put a slow, soft kiss nn my knuckles, sucking each finger. I might have made a little sound at the action. He did not play fair.

And then he walked me slowly, hand in hand back down the hall. I was so flushed I didn't mind that I didn't have a sweater in the cool house in the middle of the night. I felt warm and light, despite the.. uh.. tension in my body. It really was the best first date. Of course, we've known each other for two years and we'd slept together more times than I could count. Still, it felt nice to be treated like a date and not just a girl whose bed he could show up at and expect to be invited in.

I was so distracted I didn't think about the soft floorboard. When the ball of my foot hit it, I could suddenly taste the dankness of that room on my tongue and hear the Things laughing, and feel myself crying out begging for Eric to save me.

My knees gave out and I was falling.

* * *

When I came to, I was on my bed, in nothing but my bra and my panties. So much for Eric's first date rules. I felt groggy and then I felt a glass at my lips and a hand behind my head, lifting it to feed me something. It was water, and a pill.

I cracked my eyes open carefully and Eric was looking at me so tender and concerned, the fear melted right out of me. I took the glass from him and propped myself up on my elbow, drinking in long pulls. The water was so cool and refreshing.

"Thank you, baby," I said, running my hand through his hair. He was wearing his little red bikini underwear and kneeling on the floor beside me, petting my cheek.

"Are you well, my lover?"

"I'm fine. It's that damn loose floorboard. I need to get it fixed. It reminds me of... Well, it reminds me of that time and I always panic a little when I hit it."

He nodded and kissed me softly. His eyes blazed at me like they had last night when we were having sex. Unrelenting, intense, demanding. I felt like a deer caught in headlights.

Then he stood.

"Come," he said and held out his hand. "I will bathe you and put you to sleep."

I nodded and sat up groggily.

"Is that no-sex rule still on? I notice you didn't exactly leave me at the bedroom door." I tried a smile but I'm not sure it came out right.

"Yes," was all he said, in the authoritative voice he used with his vampire flunkies. I watched his butt in those tiny little underpants as he led me to the bathroom.

And he kept his word. While he did stand close, and I could feel his arousal bumping up against my back and my belly, he was the picture of gentle efficiency. He piled my hair on my head with a clip and set about soaping me up and massaging my skin, making sure every nook and cranny was clean. When he got to the cleft in my legs, he ran the soap teasingly over me and help me to him, his other hand on my belly, his Mr. Happy folded between us. I moaned, but then his hand and the soap was gone and he was softly running water over me to rinse me off.

He cuddled me in a big, fluffy towel, removed the clip and brushed out my hair and left me to brush my teeth and wash my face, among other things.

When I climbed into bed, I was warm and contented and almost relaxed. Eric slid up behind me and deftly molded his body against mine. I sighed.

"Thank you for a lovely evening," I breathed, just on the cusp of sleep.

I thought I heard him say something in return but then I was drifting. The last thing I remembered was his hand slipping into mine. And then I was asleep.


	17. Chapter 17: Giving Up the Ghost

**A/N:** Hope all your holidays were bright and festive and that you had your own Viking to share it with. Or, if you don't celebrate, I hope you had a great Thursday and Friday. Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. It's brought to you by the letter X. As in, not just X-rated ESN, of which this chapter has a boatload, but also the band The XX. I found them by listening to NPR's All Songs Considered and bought the album.

I listened to two songs especially, "VCR" and "Islands," and they totally colored this chapter. In "Islands," the singer says, "I am yours now so now I don't ever have to leave," and I love that. I think Sookie's been listening to it telepathically through me. It's great make-out music. So. Yeah. You know. Anyway, I hope you like.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** All these characters belong to Charlaine Harris. I'm just having a grand old time with them.

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**Chapter 17: Giving Up the Ghost**

**Sookie's POV**

I was curled on my side, all soft and warm and contented, in that floaty space between sleeping and being awake. I could feel the cool cotton under my cheek and my hands were balled around the quilt, pulling it close. My body felt disjointed, the bones all disconnected from one another, my fingertips tingling just a little as the last energy left me. I reveled in the quiet, and could see the pinkness of my eyelids where they held out the light. It was the perfect Sunday morning.

I was ready to give up the ghost.

But then cool fingers pulled back the robe from my neck, tugging it down my shoulder. Before I could shiver at the cool air touching me, his mouth was on that spot behind my ear, but just softly, barely a whisper. As good as it felt, I didn't want to move.

"My Sookie." It was Eric's deep, rumbly growl. His fingertips were tickling my neck and shoulder. I shivered back into him.

"I have missed you."

I sighed. His lips caressed down the side up my neck and up under my hair. I felt his cool nose tickle into the nape of my neck and sucked in a breath. But his mouth didn't stop there. Oh no. Down my spine he went, kissing and pulling the robe off along the way.

"Deeply."

His voice was coming from the small of my back now and his hair tickled as he went.

"I love you."

Now my breath caught for real. My throat closed up and my lips froze and a burning, floating feeling pushed at my ribs, like it was trying to break them from the inside out. I didn't open my eyes. I didn't dare turn toward him. I clutched the bed sheets a little harder.

His hand reached around and pulled my arm out of the sleeve of the robe and then up to palm the nearest breast. His big hand fit perfectly over it and I found that, even though I couldn't breathe, I could push against him, urging him further. Fire erupted further down.

"Perfect."

His thumb roughly flicked my nipple and I gasped. It felt good. I hadn't been breathing and now I was gasping for breath and I could feel the hot tears on my cheek. The dead thing was shrieking: _Get up. Leave. He's going to leave you. You can't trust him._ But my body didn't want to leave. I couldn't...

"I want these for the rest of my existence. Every evening when I rise, I want you laid out and I want to lick and suck and fuck you and rub myself all over you just for the pleasure of it. Because I can. Because you are mine."

I stiffened under him and the dead thing hissed. I couldn't say I'd mind being woken this way for the rest of my life. But that other part--that stupid vampire possessiveness, that treating me like a thing to be owned, to be kept--left made me cold. Still, I didn't pull away. He could want whatever he wanted. It didn't mean he'd get it.

But the pink on my eyelids... Something was just outside of my ability to grasp it.

And then I knew. My heart sank.

Daytime. How... How was he in my bed? Alarm shot through me, causing me to stiffen.

Oh god, I had to get him out. I had to cover him. I moved to lift the covers to bury him under them, but he wouldn't let me. I furrowed my brow. I tried to move, to turn, to fight him, but I knew he was too strong.

And then he pressed himself up against me, Mr. Happy slapping my butt as he nestled in.

"You make me so hard. I haven't been this hard for a human in centuries, Sookie."

OK I was dreaming. That was the only explanation. And if that's what was happening, then I'd go with it.

The fight left me. I groaned and pressed back against him, and the little thinking I'd been able to do was gone. Instead, I moved against him. I opened my mouth to make a sound, but his tongue imposed and all I could do was turn my head to make it a little more comfortable and suck on his tongue, run my teeth lightly over it. He growled and a sharp shudder passed through me.

I wanted him.

He turned me onto my back and I couldn't say I minded. He lifted the leg closest to him and I felt him slide down the bed. His cool tongue was on the back of my knee and then felt his fangs tickle just on the inside of my thigh. I could imagine what he looked like, predatory, staring down at me, ready to make me dinner. I knew it made me a fangbanger in most people's opinions, but I couldn't say I minded. In fact, a sharp thrill shot through me.

Eric's dinner was the best sex I'd ever had. And I wouldn't apologize for it, not after all the horrible things I'd seen and had done to me and done myself. That small intimacy, that small bit of pleasure in a world that wished me ill was welcome, no matter what. In that moment all I felt was lust and determination. I'd fight anyone and anything that tried to take it from me.

His mouth left a cool trail up my hot thigh and I found myself holding my breath waiting for him to find me. When he got close, I heard him inhale deeply, and it embarrassed me and turned me on all at once. I'd seen in lots of women's minds how cruel men could be about a woman's natural scent, but I'd never been with a man like that. I didn't know if it was because they were oversexed supes or if I was just mighty lucky, but I didn't really care. Not when his mouth was nuzzling the crook of my leg, painfully close to my wet, throbbing center. I felt his fangs, teasing.

"Ah," I managed to say.

"So sexy, Sookie," he said, and I had to strain to catch it. The cool breath coming from his mouth did wonderful things to the body parts in its vicinity, though.

I was breathing hard, my chest heaving. I jumped a bit when I felt his nose nuzzle against my hard and straining nub.

"You are healed. You are magnificent."

And then he licked and I about came undone from that single stroke.

***

It was loud. Pained. My eyes shot open. What was wrong? Was someone hurting? My eyes shot around the room. Just my bedroom, as usual. The light from the window was the dingy dull light of winter. I heard myself let out a sob and realized it was me who was moaning. I blushed furiously. I'd woken myself.

I ran my hands up my body--still naked from last night, I realized. Leave it to Eric to leave me naked in bed on a cold winter night. I guess cold never did manage to be a concern for the undead--and the idea that a girl might not want to wake up naked and alone wasn't either.

I let out a deep breath and closed my eyes again, feeling my pulse slow, feeling my heat under the covers dampened by sweat.

Wow. That was... lifelike. I pulled the covers down to cool myself some more and looked over at the empty side of the bed. I remembered Eric's hand in mine last night. A small smile might have curled the edges of my lips.

But then I grimaced. Stupid, confusing vampire. Works me right up and then leaves me just holding his _hand_? I like his hand and all, but that's not what I wanted to hold last night.

And now here I was... missing him. And not just missing him. Those confusing feelings from the dream came back: Protectiveness--which I often felt when it came to vampires. And lust. That was no surprise. But also... Also tenderness and determination to keep him, and woe to anyone who tried to take him from me. When did I become... possessive? And those things I imagined him saying: his Sookie? I missed you? And that other one, I thought distractedly. The scary one. One date and I was already having dreams of morning sex with a vampire? Was I really that easy?

I realized with a start that I wasn't even all that tired of these feelings. I wasn't tired of missing him. I didn't want to stop feeling how I felt--whatever it was. I was just... confused. And scared. And lonely. The pain in my chest contracted, closing around my heart until I had to place a hand over my chest and breathe in and out slowly.

Was it just loneliness that sent me to dreaming about him? Wanting him?

I shook my head. Time to think about something else.

I knew what that something else would be. I wanted to get better. I wanted to get out of this house and get on with my life and feel normal again. As normal as I could anyway.

I'd think about Eric later. Closer to sunset when it wouldn't be quite so... hard.

***

The weight of the coffee mug in my hand was reassuring, and so was the fact that I walked all the way from my bedroom to the kitchen without hitting that soft floorboard and without collapsing. I'd even managed to make myself some grits and eggs.

I looked over at the window and huffed out a deep breath.

Here went nothing. If I wanted to get better, I had to quit fearing the boogeymen outside my window.

I set my jaw and nodded to myself. I heard the dry scuffing of my slippers on the wood and felt the weight of the bowl in my other hand.

I stepped out into the living room. OK. This wasn't so bad. I settled in the seat I'd dragged over from the kitchen and placed my breakfast on the sill of the window.

I felt the cold seeping in from the old windows. As I ate, I tried to remember what Dr. Gumby had said: Pay attention to your feelings, allow yourself to feel them, don't try to talk yourself out of them. Actually, he'd said this to Eric, but I'd be damned if I was going to need a babysitter to sit at my own window.

The grits were smooth and vaguely sweet and pungent. The eggs were silky, the coffee bitter with a hint of cream. I smiled as I felt my face cool in front of the window and the steam from the coffee lapping at my cheeks. It felt almost like a normal morning, if I ignored that nagging panic that was rising up my spine and making my hands sweat. I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. OK. I'd faced down rapists and werewolves and a frickin' maenad. The window--outside--that shouldn't worry me.

_Don't talk yourself out of it_, a little voice whispered to me, sounding weirdly lilting. Dr. Gumby.

I took another deep breath and studied the flaking paint on the inside of the window frame. I guess I needed to repaint or refinish this sometime. Gran always took care of that and I never...

I turned from the window, looking out at the old living room. It was quiet and looked the same as always. An uneasy memory floated through me. I could see Gran, clasping her hands in front of her and grinning widely as I invited Bill into the house for the first time.

I sighed and fought vainly to keep the tears in. I shook my head and felt a tear splash away from my face. No. No, I wasn't going to do this.

But the memory wouldn't stop. She'd been so proud, falling all over herself. She thought Bill would be the answer. So did I, I realized bleakly.

Well, at least Gran hadn't lived to see what Bill was capable of.

I cleared my throat.

And what would Gran have done if I came home from work on New Years Eve with a shirtless and shoeless and amnesiac Eric?

Well, she would just invite him right in and insist that we keep him safely. She'd run right out in the morning and get him some TrueBloods.

And how would Eric have been around Gran? We'd not had all those times in front of the fire. We'd not have defiled the living room floor or the kitchen or had that shower in that bathroom.

Maybe we'd never had known each other this way. I wouldn't be in this pickle now.

I looked at the leafless husks of trees out the window, clustering together like they were spoiling for a fight.

The panic I'd been holding back hit me with a wallop. I heard my coffee mug thunk to the ground and myself shriek out. I... Suddenly a blackness was rushing me. I felt myself running through dark trees, trying to get away, knowing that something dark and menacing, with something sharp, was on my heels. I huffed, but couldn't get air in my lungs. I thought I would pass out. My face was wet. I tumbled from the chair and curled into a ball on the floor instinctively.

I skittered back against the wall, shoving the table out of the way. Another crash. No... No time now. Got to... Got to get my back safe. Something... I saw flashes of something shiny and sharp--a knife or p-pointy teeth. Aimed... Aimed at me. Sure to get me. Oh god. They were, they were coming for me. Aimed right for the soft spot between my shoulder blades. I... I wasn't safe. I took a deep drag of air and it sounded familiar, like the rasping in the cave. All at once, I realized it hadn't been my rasping back then. No. Oh God. Tray!

Oh God. Jesus Christ, Shephard of Judea... Get me through this and I'll... I go to church every Sunday. I'll volunteer. I'll do good deeds. I'll take old Jane Bodehouse home from the bar every night instead of burdening her son with it. I'll do anything. Just... Just please save me. Protect me.

Make me... Make me safe again. Please. Please.

I... I gulped in air.

*******

My shoulder hurt. My neck couldn't move. My eyes felt like a mellon after a mellon-baller had had its way with it. I opened my eyes and realized my mouth was pressed against the wood floor. There was dust in my nose.

Slowly, I unwound myself from the floor. Sitting up, I stretched and looked around. My neck cracked with the effort. The light was murkier still and I risked a look out the window. Raining. Just great.

Well, so much for my idea that I could sit at my window without a chaperone. What _was_ that? I scowled at the spilled and congealed grits on the floor. My stomached growled. I glanced at the VCR. Two o'clock. I'd been out for, what? An hour? Geez.

At least it wasn't the hallway? I tried to console myself, but I knew I was a fool. Trust me to try it my way and make things worse on myself.

I huffed and lifted myself up off the floor with effort.

I shook my head, but I was filled with determination. I was gonna get out of this house. I was gonna get better. No time to dawdle.

OK. Next step: Dr. Gumby wanted me to call my friends. My stomach clenched. Who could I count as a friend? I pictured Amelia, eyes pooling with tears as she closed the door to this house the last time. She couldn't even look me in the eyes. I sighed wearily. I wasn't ready for that conversation.

Jason was MIA. Why was he MIA? I wondered. He'd never been the most attentive brother, but he hadn't even checked on me in a month. That was a lot, even for him. I hoped he was all right.

I moved to the kitchen, gathering up some paper towels and the mop and started filling a basin with water to clean the mess I'd made. As it filled, I looked over at the phone hesitantly.

Here I go.

I dialed the number.

"Hey there. You got Jas. I ain't here now, but just you leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can. All right."

_Beep_.

My mouth felt dry. I twisted the chord around my fingers. I was equal parts angry at his silence and worried he was cross with me.

And then I hung up.

His answering machine wasn't full. He was checking it. It worked just fine. And he hadn't seen fit to call me. Well, fine then. I wasn't going to be the one to go running to him. He wanted to talk to me, he could just pick up the phone.

Time to switch tacts. I went into my bedroom and gathered a few things, including a phone book. The first call I made was fast.

"LightSafe, where your safety, security and sleep is our job. This is Kensey, how can I help you today?"

I paused. _Don't think._

"Hi there. I'd like to schedule an estimate for light-tighting a room?"

"Where you located, miss? I'm sure we could get someone out tonight if you like."

I thought about it and looked at the clock and then chatted with Kensey for a moment. She said she didn't get much call for light-tighting services in Bon Temps--no surprise there--and would have to send someone from Baton Rouge. It'd be tomorrow night, between sun down and 8 p.m. Geez. Just like the phone company. Like I didn't have anything better to do. But then again, it's not like I was leaving the house. I thanked her and hung up.

Then I picked up the receiver again and leafed through the phone book till I found the right entry.

"Alfred Cumberland Photography."

"Hey Al, this is Sookie Stackhouse."

There was a pause.

"Uh, you took pictures of me and my cousin Claude for the romance cover model competition? I'm the blond." _With the big boobs who was trying to avoid thinking of every man she'd known or wanted to know during the photo shoot while a narcissistic fairy tried his darnedest to imagine I was Charles Bronson instead? That one?_

"Oh right. Your cousin won that competition, you know," He told me proudly. Huh. I hadn't heard. And Claude sure as shooting hadn't told me. I wondered which realm he was in now. "What can I do for you?"

I sighed, feeling weary suddenly. I missed Claudine like no one's business. She was so kind and openhearted. I don't know if she ever made it to being an angel, but she sure was one in my book.

But I gathered myself, even plastering on my nervous smile for good measure. "Oh! Well, that's just great news! Must be good for you, too!"

He grunted his agreement but just waited. I got the sense that he was probably doing something else and waiting for me to continue.

"Well, I was wondering if I could get a couple copies of some of those photos? I'd pay you for them of course. A... friend wants a copy."

Now I had his attention, and he was talking photo size and cost and framing. He said he'd email me a few options to choose from when I remembered that I still had Hadley's old laptop up in Amelia's old room and we hung up. Just the thought of going up those stairs and seeing what Amelia had done to the place made me sad.

Still, I wasn't about to dwell on it. I'd already done my collapsing for the day. Time to move on. I steeled myself for one more call.

My fingers remembered it instinctively.

It only took one ring.

"Sookie! I'm so glad to hear from you. You need anything?"

I blanched. After how I had treated him--like my own little errand boy--I guess I couldn't blame him for thinking I was calling because I wanted something from him.

"Hey Sam," I sighed, some of the tension leaving my body. I struggled to keep my tears at bay. I swear, I was going to be clean out of tears by the time this ordeal was over. "Hey. It's great to hear your voice."

And it was. It was a sweet relief. I hadn't realized how much I missed him. I sighed and smiled tearily at the phone.

"Just wanted to call. How you doing?"

There was a pause and I could imagine Sam running his hand over his messy hair. Suddenly I wanted to see his face more than anything.

"Well as can be expected, _cher_. I'm... I'm real sorry I haven't been around lately. My mom has been having trouble with the divorce, and I went to spend a little time with her. Just got back two nights ago. I was going to stop by and see you last night but..."

The way he said it broke my heart. I knew why he hadn't come. I'd been so cross with him last time I'd seen him. He'd been hovering, treating me like a china doll, and I was so miserable I couldn't take the look in his eyes. So I screamed at him and told him not to come back. _I'd rather die here alone than have you standing over me like my daddy. You get out and don't you come back, Sam Merlotte! I mean it--not as a human and not as a dog. I don't want to catch you curled up sleeping on my porch one more time!_

I swallowed back my shame.

"I know," I said softly. "I'm so sorry, Sam. I didn't mean any of those things. I was in a real bad way. Thank you for..."

"Stop, Sookie. Don't. It's fine. I'm just so glad to hear from you. You sound better."

I nodded at the phone. I wouldn't tell him about collapsing earlier, or how I couldn't leave the house--not just now. My stomach growled again.

"Hey Sam? You busy this afternoon? Can you get away from the bar?"

"Sure, Sook. Sunday afternoons are always slow. Want some company? I could bring you your favorite burger lafayette if you want."

I licked my lips. Sam and a burger. Nothing sounded finer just now.

"Oh, Sam, I'd love it. I'll explain everything when you get here."

*******

I had just enough time to wash my face and put my hair together and throw on a pair of jeans and a t-shirt before I heard the knock at the door.

My heart thudded and I reflexively scanned the house for beings. The blank spot in the guest room. The snarly shifter brain at the door, Sam's agitated, excited thoughts pouring in on me in fits and starts. Nothing else.

I smiled and scurried toward the door. When I got there, I froze. _Dammit_. I'd forgotten. I rested my head on the back of the door, breathing deep. I can do this.

"Sam, this'll just take a minute," I hollered and steeled myself.

"Would it be easier if I used the spare key?" I heard him call softly. It was so good to hear his voice, and so hard to want to see him but be unable to move. I cursed my limbs.

I shook my head against the door, willing my panic to subside. With effort, I managed, "N-no. I need to do this. Just give me a minute."

I was not going to be bested by a piece of wood. I wasn't a vampire. Amid the panic and anxiety and embarrassment, I got a flash of myself staked. Yep, I survived that. I'd survive this.

My fingers trailed up to the deadlock and with a heavy exhale, I turned it. My shoulders tensed. It's OK. It's Sam. No one else is there. I did one last scan. Nope. No other beings. I sucked in a deep breath.

Here goes.

My wrist twisted and I turned the knob. Now feet: Move back. One step at a time. Just like that. The cold air hit my side closest to the door and I froze. I fought back out of the memories of how cold it had been a month ago when I'd been outside, trying to get in and unable to... Deep breath. Safe. Sam. The smell of burgers and fries wafted in.

That's all I needed, apparently, because my feet got moving again and I opened the door enough for Sam to slide in.

Once he was in and I'd slammed the door closed and locked it securely again, the panic was replaced with giddiness. I turned and flung my arms around him. Sam's not real big, but he's wiry and he felt nice and solid and warm under my hands. I felt him chuckle at my welcome.

He patted my back awkwardly and pulled back.

"Hey, _cher_," he drawled, smiling wide. "Well, look at you. All dressed and looking nice and pink, too. You doing good?"

I shrugged, embarrassed of my carrying on at the door. "Better, anyway. Oh, I'm so glad to see you!"

I hugged him again tight. I'd do something to make it up to him for being so cruel last month, I told myself sternly.

I pulled back a second and took him in. Same old Sam. He looked just as good as ever. His hair was still a wild strawberry-blond halo around his scruffy but friendly face. His eyes were still warm and smiling. How I'd missed him. It felt like a little piece of me slid back into place seeing him here again.

"Oh, Sam, I'm so sorry to have kicked you out like that. I had no call for it. You deserve better. Can I get you a drink? I think we have milk and orange juice and some sweet tea? And I've got coffee still in the pot."

Sam waved a hand and led me lead him over to the couch. "Don't mention it, _cher_," he said, and he looked grave when he said it. He was trying not to be obvious, but I could see that he was sniffing around a little.

My face colored. I thought back to what had happened--almost happened--in this room last night and I knew that Sam could smell it too.

"Eric, huh?"

He tried to sound casual but there was a strain in his voice and his muscles bunched around his shoulders. I shifted uneasily on my feet, looking toward the fireplace. Happy place, happy place.

I glanced at him and nodded. It didn't mean what he thought it meant. And least I didn't think it did. Did it? I shook my head to myself. His hand slipped from mine.

I wasn't about to explain myself to Sam Merlotte, though.

I looked at the small cardboard box Sam had brought, stuffed with all my favorite fried foods. "That sure does smell good. I'm hungry as a horse."

Sam let out a tight laugh and handed it to me. We both sat and he watched as I tore into the burger and stuffed a few fries in my mouth. Oh, I surely would never fit in that dress again but didn't this just taste _great_.

After a long silence, I glanced up at Sam. He looked angry and hurt and he was staring. Oh. My fingers went up to my neck where my hair had fallen away. I forgot about the bite marks Eric left there last night. I flushed and then went on eating. Not talking to him about _that_, either.

Sam said quietly, "I'm sure glad you're doing better, Sookie. You scared me last time I was here." He paused and I felt that sinking shame again. I swallowed hard on my burger lafayette. "Looks like you're getting your shape back, too."

I stopped mid-chew and peered at him. Was he saying I was getting fat? I looked down at myself. Surely he knew better than to bring up this topic with a woman. But then, Sam was single most of the time.

"You sure know how to flatter a girl, Sam," I deadpanned.

"I mean, you looked so... drawn and sallow last time I was here. You look rosier now. You look like you're getting back to your old self. And... well... You know I liked that old self of yours."

He had some kind of wistful look in his eyes and, though he was one of my best friends in the world, he had no right to have any kind of wistfulness toward me. We'd barely been on one date and he'd never made his intentions to me known till someone else was already in my life. Not that I hadn't entertained lots of my own fantasies about my boss, but they were just that: Fantasies. I'd never act on them, especially when I was working for him.

But I wasn't really working for him now, was I?

The look in Sam's eyes was full of longing. My heart sank and my eyes started to fill with traitorous tears all over again. I knew that look all too well. I'd seen it in the mirror more times that I cared to recall just now.

I swallowed again, and then shot up on my feet faster than I'd thought myself capable.

"Well, I don't know about you, but I sure do need a drink. Sweet tea OK for you?" I asked as I scurried away. It was the coward's way out, but I wasn't about to have that conversation with Sam just now. I stepped carefully even though I was moving fast, looking for that board to avoid.

I made it there and back without incident and breathed a sigh of relief when I handed him his cup. He nodded and looked at the table like it was the most interesting thing he'd ever seen.

"So," I said, putting a hand on his shoulder. He nodded and I could see that the fight was just leaving him. I didn't think I'd have to worry about him bringing up that topic again anytime soon. "Tell me about your mom."

As I ate, Sam told me all about how his step-father was suing for divorce after all, how he wanted everything from their marriage, and how his brother and sister were mad at him for keeping the secret. Sounded like the visit home was one long fight. I couldn't imagine it. Jason might not understand and might have some opinions about the guys I chose to date, but to hear Sam tell it, it was like his family was full of people like Arlene: judgmental, small-minded and uninterested in learning if it threatened their thoughts of the world. I shook my head.

That reminded me.

"Hey, I haven't heard anything about Arlene in a while. She been arraigned yet?"

Sam looked up surprised.

"Oh. Uh, I guess you wouldn't have heard. Not getting out much, I guess." I grimaced as he looked at the door. "She's... well, she got a plea bargain and is serving a stayed sentence. She's basically on parole. As long as she doesn't associate with any of those Fellowship types for five years, she's free and clear."

I almost laughed. And then I did and a ketchup-covered hand went up to cover my mouth. It wasn't proper but I couldn't help it.

"And what about her beau?" I had to know.

"Well, they broke up not long after the police took her in. She doesn't tell me much about it, you understand." I paused and nodded. She wouldn't. She thought Sam just as unnatural and evil as me now. I couldn't believe I could be so wrong about a friend. "But I hear from Tanya and the other waitresses that he thought she wasn't committed to the cause enough to let herself get caught. Seems he thought she put the whole movement in danger by drawing attention to their more... ah, militant ideas."

I laughed again. It wasn't nice, but it seemed fair. And then I clammed up. My heart ached.

"What about her kids? They doing OK?"

I missed being Aunt Sookie.

Sam shrugged. He hadn't seen the kids since the big were reveal. That reminded me.

"So have things calmed down at the bar? People still coming in hoping you'll turn into a collie for 'em?"

"Not really. Sometimes. Especially on busy nights, some frat boys will come in and ask if this is the bar owned by the dog."

Sam fairly growled at the memory. I couldn't blame him. Humans could be so stupid. Sometimes I was ashamed to call myself one of them. I shook my head and patted his hand.

"Well, I'm glad you're all right." I smiled at him. And then I had the oddest desire to make him proud of me. "You know... I'm on this whole regimen of self-improvement. I've got a supernatural therapist--a demon, if you can believe it, and you'll never believe what he looks like. You remember 'Gumby and Pokey?'"

He nodded, smiling slightly.

"He looks like him--all tall and gangly, and like he's been stretched out!"

"Green too?''

"Nah," I said. "But it's close enough."

We both laughed for a minute, and it was nice to share this with someone who didn't need Cliffs Notes on all the pop cultural of the last 50 years. I laughed so hard that tears came out of my eyes.

When I regained myself, I told him about the SPTSD and all the stuff he was having me do--not the couples counseling, though. There was no surer way to get Sam or even me killed than for me to spill the beans on that one.

"Anyway, he said it's not as bad as I thought. He thinks I'll be fixed right up in three months--back to my old life."

I watched Sam's expressions change as I talked. Suspicious and then surprised and then hopeful. I felt the same and squeezed his hand.

"Maybe I could come back to the bar, work for you again--if you need a waitress."

He'd be well within his rights not to have me back. I'd been more trouble than any barmaid I'd ever seen. But I still hoped I could claim my old life again.

"You sure Big, Blond and Dead'll _let_ you work?" I could tell he drawled it out before he knew what he was saying, but that didn't mean I was letting him off the hook.

"Sam Merlotte! When have you ever known me to let a man dictate what I do and where I go?"

He had the decency to look abashed and hold up his hands in surrender.

"I'll work where I like and when I like," I said, almost to myself. It'd been so nice to have Eric to myself for a week. I hated to think of that changing, but I knew it would have to. And then, despite myself, I started explaining what all I understood about this weird arrangement Eric and I had. I'd take no guff from Sam if he tried to give it, but I seemed to need to talk about it with someone who wasn't big and stretchy and a demon--someone who knew me.

"Yes, Eric's back. Yes, he's staying here. And for now... Well, for now, I suppose he's my man. You know I'm a one-man type of gal and I made that promise to him before all this happened." I waved my hand around irritably. "But he hasn't made any claims on my future and I haven't on his and right now... Well, right now, he's just trying to help me get better."

I frowned and realized it was true. It was oddly relieving to just accept the truth. Huh.

And just like that, I was overcome with longing. I'd been in such bad shape the night he finally come back. How pained, physically and emotionally, I'd been. And somehow he'd known and somehow he'd swooped in and healed me.

I shook my head out of my reverie (a good calendar word. I'd have to get a new one). I felt my cheeks burning hot and brushed some hairs out of my face to distract myself.

"Did I tell you Eric hired a home health aide to help me during the day? She's been making sure I eat and she's the one who cleaned this place up." I waved around the living room, this time with more ease. "I swear, I couldn't hardly move when she showed up. I... I don't know where I'd be without her."

Sam stiffened.

"You know I would have done all that for you." He said it through tight lips and his eyes bored into me.

Equal parts irritation and guilt flooded me. How could I explain to him that it was easier to let a stranger see me that way than a friend? How could I explain that it felt like less of an invasion? Besides, he had a job. He wasn't--and I wouldn't let him be, even now--on full-time Sookie duty.

And I don't care how much I love Sam: He's not going to wash my hair for me and feed me when I collapse and help me into the shower. He wasn't going to make sure I took my vitamins.

For better or worse, that was Eric's job just now. And his pleasure, I was sure. Oh my. And mine.

I glanced at the clock. Four-thirty.

I looked back at Sam.

"I know you would have, Sam. It's just easier to let someone I don't know do it for me. She's done this with lots of folks, and she's professional." _And I don't feel like a burden. And I don't feel like an invalid with her,_ I wanted to add.

I put my hand on his.

"I can never thank you enough for how much you were there for me the week after I got home. I've never felt so... supported by someone."

Sam looked at my hand on his and I watched as he twisted his calloused hand and threaded his fingers with mine. My stomach did a jump despite myself. He nodded.

I knew he was hoping for more. I searched myself. Nope. I couldn't find that in me, not for him, anyway. Not right now.

"If you still want to... Well, if I haven't run you off entirely," I started. "I could use help with one thing."

I explained Dr. Gumby's three-point plan to get me out of the house, and admitted to trying it myself this morning with bad consequences. He nodded along and when he looked at the window where I'd been sitting, I slipped my hand from his as gently as I could.

He looked down at his now empty hand and sighed.

"Course, Sookie. Whatever you need."

I grimaced and hugged him briefly. I didn't know what I did to deserve such a good friend but I was sure glad I had him.

I glanced at the spot where I'd collapsed, saw the remnants of the grits on the floor.

"I don't need an answer on the job just now. You saw how hard it was for me to open the door. It'll take a while for me to get back to myself again and be ready to face the world, let alone a bar full of drunks."

He looked at me soulfully and I picked at the last of my fries.

"I don't have to wait, Sookie. You've always got a job with me. When you're ready, you call me. And I'll stop by more regular again, now that I know you're up for company. And I'll tell the folks at Merlotte's that you're on the mend. You know, I had to tell them that you'd had some infection from your injuries from the car accident to explain why you still weren't back at the bar. Folks wanted to take up a collection for your medical bills and, well, I couldn't stop them without raising suspicions."

I touched a hand to my heart. God bless them. This was what living in a small town was all about. I might be Crazy Sookie to all of Bon Temps, but get hurt and people line up to help. I was surprised the ladies at church hadn't put me on their rotation of prayers and casseroles.

Sam took my hand gently and we stood. I did my best to block out his thoughts, but even so, I could tell what he was thinking, what he wanted from me. I frowned.

"Thanks, Sam," and the words would never be enough to explain how I felt for him, how grateful I was for him. I would kiss him if I didn't think it would make things worse.

"Oh, by the way, I been picking up your mail for you. I'll drop it by tomorrow. In my rush over here, I forgot it." He put his hand on his neck and looked at the floor, toeing a loose board. Then he paused like he knew he did wrong.

"Now don't get mad at me, Sook. The collection from the bar has only been about $300 so far, but I've been using it to pay your electric bill and such."

I furrowed my brow and could think of about a dozen reasons this was wrong. But I'd already put him through so much and I was so touched that I decided to let it go for now. I'd find a way to repay the folks at the bar.

I nodded and kissed him on the cheek.

He looked surprised and pleased that I wasn't fighting. I knew there was a lot he wanted to say. I hoped he wouldn't.

"Well, I suppose it's getting late. I oughta get back to the bar. Terry watched the bar while I was gone, and he's about due to take a couple weeks off. It was a lot for him."

I nodded. Now I really did understood.

"Thanks for stopping by, Sam," I said. "Really."

He gave me a short, polite hug and pulled back, nodding. As he turned, I asked, "Hey, what do I owe you for the burger?" I moved toward the table where I guess Bonnie put my purse. I wanted to be able to give him something, even if I couldn't give him what he wanted.

Sam opened the door and I braced myself for the inevitable panic. It came and I stood my ground. I didn't realize I was clinching my teeth until Sam called out to me.

"Please Sookie," he whispered bleakly. "You don't owe me a thing."

He shut the door and his words rang in my ears. I stumbled back to the couch and felt that cold thing slither around my heart once more.

*******

"Why do you smell like wet dog, Sookie?"

He was standing over me, hard muscles flexing and naked as a jaybird. I sat up. I guess I'd napped after Sam had left. Or rather, cried myself out. I was sure I had creases on my face from the pillows and looked a fright.

"Ha ha, Eric," I said numbly. "You know good and well Sam can shift into anything. Just because he usually shifts into a collie doesn't mean that he smells like wet dog."

I ran my hands through my hair and looked at the crumpled napkins and the grease-stained cardboard box on the table. It said something about my mood that a six-foot-tall Viking standing naked in front of me didn't affect me one little bit. I was just that weary.

"You are disturbed," he said, and it almost sounded like a question. I peered up at him and his face was frustrated, brows furrowed. I guessed he was missing the bond, which would tell him exactly how I felt. I couldn't say I missed it but I was willing to clue him in.

I sighed and reached for his hand, tugging him down to the couch. "No, it was good to see Sam. He was mad that I didn't let him take care of me, is all."

I pushed my hair back from my face. _And he didn't look too happy that you were here, _I wanted to I didn't. Lord knows the last thing I needed just now was Eric and Sam circling each other over a scrap of meat. Me being the scrap.

I sighed and leaned into him, closing my eyes against the cool hardness of his skin. His hand soothed my back and I took a deep breath of him. I started to feel like I was coming alive again.

"I'm glad you're up. Hungry?"

I felt Eric rumble. "Are you offering, Sookie?" Instantly, Eric's mouth was on my neck, nipping and teasing the spot where he bit last night and really waking me up now. I just wrapped my arms around his muscular waist and cuddled into him.

I smiled and kissed his chest, the heat rising to my cheeks. I thought about Sam's comment, that he would have done all those personal care things for me. I thought of how good Eric was at them. "Maybe later. Right now I want to get cleaned up. I'll fetch you a TrueBlood if you like."

Eric's fingers tickled up my side and into my hair. I shivered a little and rubbed my face into his chest, tickling his pecs with my eyelashes.

Eric growled and I relished the sound. My man. _I can't believe I told Sam that Eric was my man._ But I suppose it's true in an odd, undefined way. We hadn't laid any claim on one another's futures. But I don't fool around behind someone's back. Right now I was sleeping with Eric and whether it was love or just a welcome break from my sadness and terror, I wasn't going to start up with someone else now. Just the thought made me shaky, unsure. And relieved.

And surprised by how natural it all seemed all of a sudden. I'm a cheap date, I thought grimly.

I pushed the thought away to study later. For now I leaned up and looked in Eric's eyes. They were soft and unguarded, a pale, serene blue. I kissed his lips and smiled a small smile at him.

And then I thought of something.

"Hey, what are you doing naked?" Not that I was objecting, mind you. I could eat off those abs.

My hand traced his stomach. Mr. Happy twitched.

"Do you object, lover?" he leered at me, bringing my hand down to play in the happy trail leading down south. He threw his head back in preparation for pleasure. The way he shook his hair out made me think of a lion. I had to laugh.

"Not at all, Eric. Just wondering. Is this how you walk around your house?" I could just see him strutting around his house naked as the day he was born, with all the windows open, just hoping to be caught and admired.

His eyes sparkled down at me. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

I let out an involuntary, husky laugh.

*******

Eric passed on the TrueBlood and went right to the shower with me. Turns out he'd been getting ready to shower when he noticed the "wet dog smell" and came to find out who'd been by--possessive as ever. Or at least that's what he said. I was pretty sure that he was just showing off. And after last night's marathon tease, I was ready to jump him.

He insisted on "washing the stench off me," to which I replied that he had better be careful.

"You know, the way you supes can smell everything can give a girl a complex. You've gotta be more subtle."

I held out no hope that he would listen to me.

And he didn't.

"Others haven't objected," he shrugged, matter-of-fact.

"Yeah, probably the same women who wanted you to be their sugar daddy and gave up their whole lives for you," I snorted and shook my head. "Besides, I'm not others."

He laughed a loud, pleased laugh and leaned in to kiss me. I laughed when he tickled my side.

"So true, my lover," he growled.

And then he straightened a little and whispered in my ears, all deadly and dramatic the way only a vampire can, "Oh my fair and beautiful Sookie, your fragrance is as sweet as honeysuckle and roses, never overpowered by the mange of shifters or weres. Please do forgive your humble vampire servant."

"Oh _brother_," I deadpanned, but I still blushed.

I couldn't stay agitated with him because he was shampooing my hair, building up the lather to such a degree that soon the big bubbles were cascading down my face and I had to hold myself under the spray to wash them off. His strong fingers were doing a number on my temple and my neck and, well, generally everywhere they touched. I let out a long, contented sigh. All my sadness and stress about Sam was disappearing and being replaced by... well, I guess the word would have to be happiness.

"Ah."

And lust, of course. Big lust. We'd shared a shower last night, but this one felt... different. Way different. Tear-the-shower-curtain-from-the-rod different.

"You are happy, dear one?" He turned me around to face him and rinse the shampoo out of my hair. _He_ sure was happy. In fact, I folded _Mr_. Happy up between us and curled my arms around his waist, resting my hands on his perfect butt.

_I'm happier now,_ I wanted to say, my eyes closed as I let Eric thread his fingers through my hair to remove the last traces of soap. Then I heard Eric chuckle and I realized I must have said it out loud. I opened my eyes and saw Eric's cat-that-ate-the-canary grin--just before he leaned down and took my mouth in an unhurried, thoughtful, tender kiss that made the water feel cold in comparison.

"Oh." It was about as articulate as I could be at the moment.

Eric smiled, showing fang, and I shivered in delight. He combed conditioner through my hair with his fingers and then pulled my face up to him for a teasing kiss.

"Let me," I said, struggling to breathe in and out, in and out. I turned him so he was under the spray and leaned up to kiss him myself, nipping his lower lip and running my tongue along them till he opened his mouth. Ah. That tongue.

I poured a dollop of shampoo onto my hand and worked it into his hair. He had to lean forward into me to allow me to do it, but he wouldn't let go of my butt, so it seemed more like he was dipping me than it did that I was washing his hair. It made me smile and laugh at him and he had a wicked grin and I knew this wouldn't last long.

Soon I was less washing his hair than kissing him and holding him to me with sudsy, slick fingers. I couldn't say I minded, and by the way he was growling and running his mouth down my jaw and neck, he didn't either.

"What base is this?" Eric asked in a raspy breath, tonguing and nipping at my collarbone until I was moving against him. His hands went down to knead my butt.

I gasped and struggled to catch my breath, wanting to climb up on him, to keep the water out.

"Uh," I started, my eyes on him through the billows of steam rising around us. I couldn't be sure they weren't from us rather than the water. "I... I don't think there is a base for this."

Eric chuckled. "Foolish humans," he breathed into my neck, sucking at the spot where my shoulder joined my neck. "So uninventive."

I groaned. I panted. I rubbed myself up against his long, hard (and I do mean _hard_) body.

"Ah."

Suddenly, I didn't know what he was waiting for. I took one of his hands and guided it between my legs, gasping and sputtering water as his fingers made contact. I couldn't look at him, with water falling in my eyes.

I just muttered, "Third," and Eric took over. I clung to his shoulders as best I could as water coated them and made him slick.

I bit at his chest and soon everything was happening quickly. This wasn't like that first, mind-blowing shower we'd shared. We'd explored every inch of each others bodies since then. He'd lost his memory and regained it. I'd broken apart and healed a few times and he'd healed me beautifully just a few nights ago.

I had no need for shyness. I raised one knee to his hip, pulling up on the tippy-toes of my other foot.

I placed one of his hands on my panting, needing breast, groaning on contact.

"Yesss," I hissed, spitting water out of my mouth as he sucked and nipped at my throat. "Ah. God."

Eric growled.

"Enough." His voice was hoarse, commanding, and I was ready to follow. He pulled me up so that both my legs locked around his waist and swung me around so I was under the spray and he was biting and sucking mercilessly at my breasts. It was all I could do to just hold on and not to drown.

"Ah." I pressed myself up into his mouth and ground down on him, wiggling to find the right pressure. First his fangs pierced the delicate skin around my nipple. Then I felt him thrust up, rubbing against my center in the worst, best teasing way.

"Yes," he said around my breast, adding its own tingle to the riot growing in my body. "Sookie."

Finally he just pressed me against the wall and, with one quick shift and movement, he was inching into me, slipping and sliding and causing a flush to bloom all over me. I gritted my teeth and bore down on him, wanting all of him and wanting him now.

Gracious he felt good. I exhaled deeply in relief, in welcome, and my body started shivering. I couldn't say just then whether it was the sudden coolness of my skin now that I was out of the water or whether it was something else, some other breaking-loose happening inside me.

He pressed his whole body against me and his hand was on my face again, shaking me a little to get me to open my eyes. I resisted, adjusting to the feeling, savoring how full I felt, floating on pure sensation. I knew when I opened my eyes, he would be there, demanding something of me, showing me something I wasn't sure I was ready to see.

Finally, he crushed his lips onto mine with such force that I had to open my eyes. And just like that, his eyes were boring into me, so intent, so full, so _there_ that it took a second for me to remember to breathe.

"Look at me, Sookie," he growled and thrust into me. I struggled to keep my eyes open and to feel everything he was giving me, pressing into me with his eyes and his body. I curved my hips into him, began moving with him, and suddenly I was no longer just being watched. I was watching him react to what I was doing to him, watching his pleasure mount as mine did.

He was beautiful.

His eyes grew small, dilated with each thrust, his mouth open just a little, droplets of water gathering there and then dripping down. He wasn't breathing and didn't seem to be exerting himself, but he was building. I could see it. I licked the water off his lips, watched as they puffed out with every grunt, every thrust.

I wanted to eat him whole. I watched him now voraciously--taking him, taking all of him, not letting go. I'd never felt so desired, so on fire. I was sure we could heat the water with our passion alone. I rotated my hips on him and he began to thrust harder, faster.

His little sounds matched mine. His hands were moving my hips up and down on him. He was hitting just right and suddenly, I didn't want to hold back anymore. I wanted to give everything. I wanted him to have all of me--fool or not. I wanted it. I wanted him.

"Eric. Eric!" I commanded. The look in his eyes shifted, just a little, into something I couldn't describe except that it was something like relief and tension all bound together. "Oh yes, baby. Now!"

He started muttering in his old language, kissing me hard and I held his head behind his neck, holding him to me. Kissing hard. Watching his eyes as I reached between us and touched myself as we moved.

I felt it start in my toes. My feet cramped around his delicious butt and I couldn't move, and then swirls and flashes of gold and crimson took me and I was floating, I was exploding, I was watching Eric's blue eyes. Ecstatic. Wanting. _Give me_, I thought. _More. Mine. _And I couldn't find it in me to be apologetic for thinking it.

And then he found his good minute and I watched him, felt him crest and fall over the edge with me, his face contorted and then relaxed as a baby's, gentle and beautiful.

_Lucky_, I thought happily as aftershocks rolled over us.

Just right now. Just in this moment he was mine. And that's all I wanted.

I curled my arms around him, held his face to my neck and relaxed into our aftershocks, letting him hold me up. Letting him have me in this way.

Just for now.

**Eric's POV**

This was not now I intended this night to go but I would not complain.

Not when my lover was laying under me her hot body flushed from the shower and arousal, her blood tempting with every pulse. I kissed my way down her neck and between her breasts to her belly. Both breasts bore identical fang puncture marks. Her nipples were hard and rosy, her aureola a darker, duskier pink, drawn up in puckered excitement. She'd already had two orgasms that I had counted and I was not done with her yet.

I kissed down her belly and flicked my tongue into her belly button, relishing the whimper of pleasure that came from her.

"Sookie," I growled. And she knew immediately. She looked at me through half-closed eyes, her wet hair a riot of blond on the pillow. She had never been more wild or more beautiful. I thanked whatever gods still existed for her sweet blood and her sweet sex and for the mood I found her in this night.

I had expected to wake and endure another tedious night of play-acting the part of a human suitor. I had selected a few movies by one of her favorite actresses and was prepared to order in a pizza for her and sit chastely next to her--eventually convincing her to explain this arcane foreplay allusion she had used last night.

Bases. How quaint and inadequate, I thought as I breathed in her clean, pure scent mingled with mine. Yes. Mine. She would wake smelling of me. I smiled a fangy smile against her lower belly and the soft skin gave way under me. I held her against her hipbones, feeling the thrill of being in control of her body.

At least the shifter had received the shock of smelling not just me on her but the smell of sex in the living room. It would linger for days. And then the bite mark....

Ah. It made me hard--harder--to know that she was mine in the supernatural community, that I had laid claim to her at last with my faculties about me.

But to find Sookie crumpled on the couch, and then to find her happy to see me. And to have the excuse to drag her to the shower and find her not just willing but adament... well, she had been a reward and a treat this night. I wanted her. I wanted her more than I had ever imagined. My thirst for her was not sated.

I brushd my chin and lower lip against her coarse blond curls.

"Mmmm, Sookie," I growled. "You feel very well this night. Shall I check to see if you are healed completely?"

I ran my fingers ahead of me, under me as I spread her legs, gathering wetness as I went, warming my hands with it. Her stitches were barely noticable.

She bucked and shivered and I looked in her eyes and saw the desire and happiness there. She wanted to be no where else. Unlike her internal battles last night, she was mine this night.

How odd that the only time she didn't fight me was during sex. I would have to give her something else to fight against, so she ceased fighting me.

She opened her thighs and wrapped them around my neck and my head slipped lower. I could barely hold her eyes from this position but I could see enough to see her watching me.

Ugh. I growled. Nothing tasted like Sookie tasted. Nothing felt the way she did. I could feel her pulse hammering beside my temple as I opened her with my tongue and heard her vibrate and whimper under me. Her hips bucked.

"Eric..." she sighed.

I would never tire of hearing her say my name in her breathy, urgent way. I had heard it in a dozen different languages and from hundreds of voices, but her soft southern twang and the pride behind her voice made it a victory to relish.

We'd spent the next two hours after that shower showing each other how happy we were to see each other, reminiscing with our bodies. But there was something new here. Some new respect. After the few stories I'd shared with Sookie, she knew me better. I never thought to tell a human my stories. It seemed irrelevant, boring--or else a parlor trick with which to lure a naive human to my bed, should I need such wiles. But with Sookie, I found I desired to be known. It was an odd feeling, one not entirely comfortable in my cold body.

And her body was different: Still unforgettable, perfect. But I knew it intimately. I had seen her damaged. I had helped heal her. I would do it again, over and over should she need it. I hoped she would never need it.

I licked up and down her labia, recalling the cuts and tears and fetid blood I'd found here a week ago. Now it was slick and pink and nothing but beautiful. As I knew all along it would be. I breathed in deep her scent, nuzzling my nose into her clitoris. I felt it throb under me. Very good. I growled into her folds and felt her quiver under me. A finger, which I'd pressed into her, felt the soft sucking of her walls at the sensation, so I did it again, eliciting the same response.

She was not frightened this night, I realized with wonder, looking into her eyes, which betrayed only desire and joy. She looked like she had a year ago, before the fairies and the memory tricks and the tiger. Unbridled. Perfect.

I growled and suckled her, pressing another finger into her. A shadow of doubt passed her eyes and I disengaged long enough to lick my lips pointedly and tell her, "You are marvelous, Sookie. Healed. Perfect. I love... I love your pussy."

As I lowered my face back into her hot, pulsing center, I said against her folds, "I love you."

And then I turned and bit and felt her contract completely against me. I loved her blood. I loved her sex. I loved her.


	18. Chapter 18: Shattered

**A/N:** I know. Twice in one week? Crazy. You guys are benefiting from a massive dose of proscrastination. If I get fired from my job, I'm blaming you. Just kidding.

Some of you like to say you like the way I characterize Eric, so I gave two helpings of Eric's POV in this chapter. I hope it's up to snuff. Hopefully, this chapter will start your New Year right. Enjoy it! And please let me know what you think.

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Disclaimer:** Eric, Sookie, Bobby and Pam belong to Charlaine Harris. The rest are mine. Mine!

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**Chapter 18: Shattered**

**Eric's POV**

I had gone to rest hard more times than I cared to count this past week. I growled. Why could I not get enough of her? I had had her five times this night and she was so deeply asleep now that I doubted an army of Weres could rouse her. And yet all I wished to do was crawl into her bed and open her and suck and lick her more.

I flexed my hands and padded through her house naked, quietly testing floorboards for squeaks and groans. Shortly, I had found 40 boards on the ground floor that ought to be replaced. The whole floor really needed to be refinished but I would put that off for now. I began climbing the stares, carefully testing each board for stability.

I had been sure that having her every night would quench my need. But it only fed it. She was so alive, so vital during sex. So unrestrained. She was everything I always knew she could be. Everything that I now remembered.

I continued to toe my way up to the top of the stairs. As I did so, I sucked in the scents in her house: Old lumber, mildew, dry rot, vermin under the house. And of course and most importantly, the sweet smell of my bonded. The scent of our sex. Unfortunately, the scents of shifter and the human aide and the demon doctor lingered as well. The smells were becoming familiar. My vampiric body, ever attuned to its surroundings, knew the space as intimately as I knew her.

Perhaps I only needed more time with her to sate myself, I reasoned. Another month or two of nightly sex. In my bones I knew that would not be enough. A few years, then. My muscles tensed in protest. It was settled. It would have to be forever. Or the rest of her human life, I corrected myself.

I growled at the burning in my chest at the prospect.

I set my jaw. I reached the top of the stairs and promptly knocked my head on the door frame. I growled in irritation. This space is inadequate, low-slung and sectioned off strangely into two rooms off a main hall. I looked from one room to the other. Still, the space was more private than the rooms downstairs. I crossed my arms across my chest and assessed.

This room to the left could be easily converted to a bathroom. There would be a good spot for the whirlpool tub and the freestanding shower. A vanity could rest against the other wall. Sookie didn't seem like the type who would need a makeup station, though I could be wrong. I'm sure we could squeeze in a toilet somewhere.

Now for the other room... Clearly, it would not accommodate both a sufficient closet as well as a large enough bed. I suppose one of the rooms downstairs could be used as a wardrobe, though I expect Sookie would object to such an extravagance, as she would my attempt to expand the second story. Any attempt to install a sauna would likely be rejected out of hand. I shook my head, remembering all the times she had rejected me. I'd never seen a human so bent on rejecting pleasure.

Actually, untrue. I chided myself for my imprecision. All those fools at the Fellowship--they were the most repressed humans I had encountered in my millennia--and that includes the investigators in the Spanish Inquisition. At least _they_ took pleasure in the pain they inflicted--they were much like vampires in that way. It was true that the Fellowship relished and took pleasure in the death of my kind, but they so rarely got to experience it that they had become more and more... frustrated over the years.

Oddly, one night with a vampire could easily relieve their sexual frustration. A fact I knew personally.

Ah, that little brunette. I smiled cruelly. She'd been so convinced that I was the spawn of Satan when we met--when she attempted to infiltrate Fangtasia and bring information back to her superiors. After a few hours with me, I'd had her writhing on my couch, dress ripped open, her breasts pooling bare on her ribcage, her hand tangled in her hair, her skirt hiked up and her feet propped wide on the cushions, arousal dripping from her in a steady stream. I'd had to call in a leather specialist to remove the stain she'd left. I hadn't even had to glamour her.

I'd held her there at the pinnacle for an hour, extracting every last bit of information about the Fellowship's power structure, the location of that pest Newlin and his plans for the future. By the time I was done with her she was begging me to bite her, to make her mine, to fuck her hard. Eventually, she'd come just from a flash of my fully extended fangs. She'd asked me to move her into my house and be naked in bed with me every evening when she rose. I chuckled darkly at the memory.

The last time I'd seen her, she'd been trailing behind a group of vampires in New Orleans, wearing a tight, low-cut black t-shirt that read "Vampires do it all night long," tottering behind them on fuck-me pumps and barely keeping up. There had been fang marks all over her neck. I knew she'd been used by many vampires that night and would likely be used by many more. She probably would enjoy being passed from one vampire to the next in the old style. We had a name for humans like her: Meat.

I chuckled, my lust only feeding my desire to wake Sookie again. I refocused on this dusty space, with its stripped bed and rag rugs.

Of course, if this space were to become our chamber, we would need to raise the ceiling. I would not stoop in my own home. Naturally, we would raze the whole floor and install fireproof metal panels between levels and into the walls, and automatically locking double entry doors to keep out the sun when Sookie moved about during daylight hours. Perhaps a fireplace for comfort.

All that would require Sookie to leave her home, however, and so such renovations were months off at least. As it was, I wondered at Sookie's capacity to handle the few hours of board repair the house would be receiving tomorrow. I moved carefully around the upper story, testing the boards. Only a few would need replacement on this level. It was newer.

Right now, I'd settle for light-blocking shutters and a security door on Sookie's little floral room. Anything was better than that demeaning little space in the closet. I had not hidden away in such a place for centuries, and I did not intend it any longer than absolutely necessary. I recalled the disgust I'd felt when I'd stayed with Sookie last year. I had not known who I was, but I'd still hated the space.

I ghosted back down the stairs and opened my laptop, scanning emails and checking my voicemail. I flipped open my phone.

"What is this urgent matter, Pam?"

"Good evening, Master. How's the psychopathic telepath?" There was a smirk in her voice I didn't appreciate. Pam's sense of humor had become more obvious since Sookie's appearance and I did not enjoy it.

"Asleep, and you will not call her that again. Now, speak."

Pam paused and returned to her usual bored voice. "There are a few new vampires to the area that require your inspection and Madden and Seacrest left a message that they expect an audience Tuesday. We have the first quarter audits and projections due for de Castro."

I gritted my teeth. One less night with Sookie--perhaps more, since we would have to prepare the documentation. I cursed my position.

"Fine. Forward the emails. I will be there an hour after first dark Tuesday. You can confirm with Madden and Seacrest and set appointments for the transplants. I want to be out of there as quickly as possible."

"It will be done."

"And inform Liddicot that we'll require his services the next two days. Gather all the books and leave word with Bobby to courier them to the accountant. I expect a full report of any actions he requires of me tomorrow night."

Pam grunted her assent. I knew there was some accounting the human couldn't do for us, and I would need to do it, or else have Pam put it together.

I ground my teeth together, my fangs extending slightly at the inconvenience and its implication.

"And send last quarter's area inventory, along with any updates of which you are aware. I'll take some time tomorrow night to finish it myself."

Another grunt from my child.

"By the way," she purred, and I knew I wouldn't like this. "What did you need your sword for, sheriff?"

I scowled. I would have to punish Bobby for being so loose-lipped. I had thought that his infatuation with me would make him more obedient, but he was becoming a liability. I so tired of glamouring and draining day men.

"Extra protection," I stated simply and hung up.

A few more pleasant tasks, a few emails, and I was to ground, fantasizing about one day soon going to my rest with Sookie beside me.

**Sookie's POV**

I woke up and it was _loud_.

Loud like jackhammer-outside-your-window loud. Loud like bar-fight loud. And it was all coming from right outside my door. I recognized Bonnie's softer voice, but there was a deeper voice and a gravely voice--and the stomping of a lot of feet.

What on earth...?

By reflex, I scanned the house and its surroundings for brain signatures. The silent void of Eric in the guest room. The loud broadcast from Bonnie (_Ay dios mio these men... Mr. Northman... Sookie needs her sleep!_). I smiled in my half-awake, half-dazed, half-irritated position face-down on the bed. Then there was another brain I recognized (_... This dump... get him to come home... won't be day man to a fucking barmaid_). Bobby. God, I hated that guy.

And then there were at least three other human brains milling around my house, all thinking about construction and rush work and how much money they could make if they could talk me into fixing it up. Fat chance. I was not going to be inviting these noisy so-and-sos back to my house anytime soon.

I huffed, squeezing my eyes more tightly closed. I knew exactly what was going on, and I didn't like it. Trust Eric to take a moment of vulnerability and swoop in and fix it in the most high-handed way he could find. Sure, it's a nice thought, but he could have warned me. He could have asked them to come later in the day instead of waking me up. He could have sent anyone but Bobby.

And now I was surrounded, I thought with horror... Too many people... Too much noise. And oh those noises. Just the crunch of gravel under feet made my mind go fuzzy. My hands broke into a clammy sweat and I shivered in fear. I checked the brains again. Still six, all human except Eric's. OK. I couldn't quite breathe right.

I bet the door's open, too, I thought with fear that bordered on nausea. I pulled my pillow on top of my head.

_Please.... Please...._ I begged whatever was out there. I felt my tears drip onto the sheet below me.

I took a few minutes to calm down, to practice reciting to myself all the stuff I'd survived, a technique that seemed to help yesterday. I tried to remind myself that a measly open door wasn't going to be my death, even though a month ago that door was the difference between survival and torture. I swallowed down some bile and took a bunch of deep breaths till I felt light headed.

*******

A loud clanging right outside my bedroom door woke me from my brief sleep. My head jerked up in irritation but before I could launch myself out of bed, my eyes alighted on the strangest sight just where my face had been. I was confused for a second, then irritated, then oddly... tickled.

I rolled my eyes and swiped up the offending garment on my way to the bathroom. A pair of Eric's red bikini underpants.

They had drool on them and tears.

I flung them into my hamper.

As I brushed my teeth, I shook my head. Stupid 1,000-year-old Viking. I bet he thought it was sexy, that it would remind me of that first night he came to my house, confused and without a memory.

That _was_ a good night, though, I reminded myself.

_Fine, he wins,_ I huffed.

But then I was stopped short as I looked at myself in the mirror. Last night flooded back. Eric murmuring into my flesh, telling me how healed I was, how much he loved my.... well, my lady parts. I watched the color rise to my cheeks. A different kind of sweat broke out on me, but I was just as panicked. He'd... I could have sworn he'd said...

My mind went blank in protest. I couldn't hear clearly anyway. His mouth was... muffled. I'm sure I imagined it.

_Just like my dream,_ a little part of me provided. I'd like to strangle that little voice sometimes.

I shook my head and rinsed out my mouth, looking at myself in the mirror--all pink and healed on the outside. So how come I felt so ragged on the inside? This nagging sadness dragged me down. I stared at my eyes, at how puffy they were. Had I cried in my sleep?

And then I couldn't think about anything because there was a clamor outside my bedroom door that made my fillings rattle.

Oh for heaven's sake!

I tugged on my robe and headed out into the hall.

I flung the door open and caught the maker of the sound: A burly 30-something construction worker with knee pads on was sucking on the side of his hand, where he'd sliced himself pretty good, and cursing under his breath. A hammer and a crowbar were by his feet and the floorboard--that floorboard, _the_ floorboard--was ripped up exposing the joists underneath. He must have sliced himself trying to remove it.

And then I looked around in horror. All down the hall were little red xes dotting my floorboards. "Oh." I turned my head and looked the other way toward the living room and there were more. "Oh no."

They were all over the place. They were on the stairs. "Oh _no_." I climbed a few stairs, wincing as a few steps creaked under me, and saw that the xes continued into Amelia's old rooms. The other men I'd sensed were already bent over the boards in various rooms tearing my floor apart--one in every room, four in all.

"_No_."

My mouth screwed closed so tight I thought I might crack a tooth. I spun around and put my face in Bobby's. I wished I hadn't brushed my teeth. He deserved some dragon breath right about now.

"What the _hell_ is all of this?!" I hollered, and I'll admit to enjoying it when he flinched. "Those aren't..."

I turned to the construction guy who was wrapping a bandana around his hand. "You are not tearing up my floor!"

Burly groaned as he stood and wiped his bandaged hand on his leg. He looked confused. He pulled a paper from his pocket, a work order, and stared at it a moment before Looking up at me. "Listen, ma'am, it's all paid..."

"Arg!" I grunted and took a quick detour into the guest room while Burly was still speaking. I shuffled into the closet and stomped on the ground there a few times. I hoped he woke covered in dust and spiders and rot.

Then I returned to the hall and tried to compose myself, my manners coming back to me just a little. I pushed my hair out of my face and folded my arms in front of me, ready to hear the rest of his excuse so I could kick them all out.

He looked at me like I'd well and truly lost my mind, and maybe I had. But I was operating on four hours of sleep, strangers were in my house, my front door was wide open and I was going to collapse any second from the bone-deep panic building in my back. This was not turning out to be a good day.

"Uh," he started, looking at me sideways. "As I was saying, it's paid for and we've already gotten started. We can be done in an hour and a half, three hours, tops. Mr. Northman promised a bonus for fast and quiet work--though board replacement isn't a quiet process."

_No kidding,_ I wanted to grumble. Burly--Jimmy Mitchell was his name, 37, wife and four kids at home, been a licensed contractor for 15 years and was currently building a new house for him and his family from scratch--was thinking that the boards by the kitchen were rotted and that the whole floor really ought to be taken up and replaced, the boards were so warped.

Well, hell. I looked around me. There were holes in my floor everywhere. Out the window I could see a workbench and a saw set up. A _saw_! Oh Lordy. Suddenly I froze. I couldn't believe I was going to do this.

I lowered my head and gritted my teeth. "Fine, fine. Do it fast. And keep the door outside _closed_. I mean it. I don't want the windows open, either. You'll just have to deal with it. And you clean up when you leave. I don't want to talk to any of you again."

Jimmy had the nerve to look past me and smile at Bobby.

"Hey buddy!" I stepped right up into Jimmy's face. "You look at me, OK? Bobby may have brought you in here but I own this house. And if you want to live through this, you will do as I say and you'll take me seriously. Mr. Northman won't like it if a human man disrespects his wife."

I couldn't believe I was saying this, but it had the intended effect. The smirk dropped from Jimmy's mouth and he looked at me with worried eyes. He nodded at me apologetically.

"And you!" I turned to Bobby, pointing a finger in his face. "Don't you give me that look. I don't care what you think of me, but you will treat me and Bonnie with respect when you are on my property, do you hear me? I've been protecting you from Eric until now but so help me, I will wipe his chin after he drains you if you don't start showing me some respect."

Bobby, who was standing next to Bonnie with his arms crossed, flexed his jaw and nodded.

"I was just leaving anyway," he sneered. I carefully kept my shields up. On his way out, he said, "There are some packages for you in the kitchen... _if you can make it there_."

If it wouldn't make me look more insane that I already did, I would have throttled him in front of God and everyone, I was so angry. How dare he! And how dare Eric tell anyone what was happening to me--let alone Bobby. A hot humiliation rose in my cheeks.

I shot Jimmy a disgusted look and walked back into my bedroom, slamming the door.

Bonnie followed after me, placing a hand on my shoulder as I collapsed against the door.

*******

The hot water was the only thing that was keeping me here, reminding me that I wasn't in the cave anymore, that the bone-splintering sounds of the saw and the driving of the nails weren't being inflicted on my bones and flesh. Every sound made my bones tingle and break apart again. I had retraced my wounds a dozen times in the last hour, and I still couldn't believe I was in one piece. I wasn't.

I was vaguely aware of Bonnie massaging my shoulders gently. I shivered and rocked in the tub.

I'd been like this for two solid hours. Bonnie had been able to force some biscuits down my throat and a Xanax tab, but I'd promptly thrown them up when the sawing started. I'd wretched so many times this morning that all I could taste now was bile on my tongue. I sobbed a little and placed my forehead on my knees, all energy leaving me.

I swallowed and it hurt from all the yelling I'd been doing. I was going to kill Eric for this. I was going to take one of those torn-up floorboards and whittle it down and stab him through his unbeating heart over and over again for this. Another zip of the power saw through a board made me jump and I whimpered involuntarily. This was insane. Insane and high-handed and way, way too much. Sure that one board needed to be replaced--I should have thought of it myself. I should have called them and arranged it myself. That way at least I would have had some control over this disaster. And I felt so little control of my life these days. I sobbed some more as the hammering moved over my head to Amelia's rooms.

I didn't care that it was daytime. The world was black as pitch to me, and I couldn't stop thinking of all the things I'd lost. All the people. That people I loved died because of me, that maybe the world would have been better if they'd lived and I'd died.

The only one I had left was Eric. And Sam. _I can't believe I told Sam Eric was my man._ After this, I wasn't sure I wanted him to be.

Maybe I'd finally give Sam his shot.

*******

I kept going over and over it in my brain but I couldn't make it make sense.

Finally, I blurted, "Why did I let them do this, Bonnie?" My voice was tiny. And it was my own stupid fault. If I kept up on maintenance of this house, if I had thought to call a carpenter myself...

The house was finally, blessedly quiet. It was two in the afternoon and Bonnie was combing through my hair gently while I choked down some biscuits and eggs through my tears. I prayed I'd be able to keep down the food and Xanax I'd just taken.

"Well, because you knew it needed to be done," she was saying matter-of-factly. "Hold still, dear. And because you don't ever want to step on any of those loose floorboards again."

She paused and picked up a hair elastic from the side table.

"And because you love him."

I stiffened and the biscuit caught in my throat. I sputtered. I tried to work myself into a froth but I was too emotionally wrung-out to do it.

Bonnie was braiding my hair calmly. "It's the only reason that makes sense. Sure, the boards needed it. There's a lot that probably needs to be done to a farmhouse. But with the state you're in, you'd be well within your rights to have asked all those men to leave. Lord knows I was getting ready to do it myself when you came out of your room."

Her voice was gentle and her fingers in my hair calmed me. I swallowed and took another bite and chewed. I was too weary, too exhausted to contemplate that just now. Another few tears dripped embarrassingly down my cheeks. I snuffled pitifully.

"I don't know about that," was all I could get out.

"Well, I could be wrong," she said as she draped my braid over my shoulder. "Now, you finish that up and get a nap. Dr. Eugenides will be here in a few hours."

Crap. I'd totally forgotten.

But I couldn't care. I fell into sleep so hard that I almost gave myself a headache.

Unfortunately, sleep didn't last. Every time I started to dream, I heard ripping and tearing sounds, sawing, laughing. My limbs burned and my wrists stung and I was screaming, screaming, screaming, alone.

*******

"She isn't well today, doctor."

It was Bonnie's voice on the outside of my door. I was about ready for people to stop making any kind of noise outside my door, I thought irritably. And they could all just go away. I scanned the brains: Bonnie's, Eric's (I seethed automatically), and a staticky brain I knew was probably Dr. Gumby's. I reached out with my gift further and didn't find any other brains around my property. It should have relieved me but I felt so tense I couldn't function.

Dr. Gumby might have said something more, but I didn't hear it. A minute later, the door opened and Dr. Gumby moved silently to the chair in the corner. I didn't look up at him and I didn't turn on the light. I was enjoying the dull gray of the late afternoon. It looked about how I felt.

"My dear," he said quietly. "It has been a hard day, I see."

I didn't say anything. It wasn't a question. I let my eyes lose focus on the bed sheets. My head was throbbing.

The silence stretched on but I didn't sense any tension from Dr. Gumby to make me talk, so I just let it. Eventually, my breathing slowed and my muscles unwound a little. My head was still as foggy as ever, but I didn't feel like I'd crack open at any second anymore.

"Care to tell me about it?"

I grunted--kind of a half grunt and half cough to clear my throat. _I'm schizophrenic,_ I wanted to say. _I'm having hallucinations and I can't seem to stay here. My boyfriend or whatever he is is a high-handed jerk who obviously doesn't know or doesn't care how broken I am right now. He might have said I love you. I might love him. I feel like my head is going to fall off my shoulders._

Which one do I start with?

"I'm going to kill him," I settled on.

"Kill who, my dear?"

I finally tore my eyes away from my blankets and glanced up at him. If it's possible, it hurt my eyes to move them. I gritted my teeth. "Eric."

"Why's that?"

"Because he's high-handed. Because he took one little spell and decided that my whole floor should be torn up and he didn't even have the decency to warn me or schedule it for when I wasn't asleep." I was ranting now and it felt good. "He can't do anything small," I went on. "He can't just have the one board replaced. Oh no. He has to find every weak board on my floor and mark it with a big, ugly x and call in people and have it replaced.

"He's such a jackass. He doesn't care about me at all. He should know those... sounds scare me. If I jump out of my skin when one board creaks, what does he think I'm gonna do when four men are ripping and sawing and hammering for three hours? And that stupid Bobby. I hate him. He thinks horrible things about me. He thinks I'm a whore and trash and that Eric is slumming it with me. And Eric goes and tells him why he's having the floorboards replaced!

"I ask you: Does that sound like someone who cares about another person?"

I didn't realize I was curling the quilt up into my fists until I stopped talking. My nails ached. My spine was tingling and my shoulders were tight.

Dr. Gumby leaned, relaxed, back in the little chair in the corner, his big, absurd frame totally obscuring the furniture under him. One ankle was on his knee and the butt of his pen was in his mouth.

"What was this spell, Miss Stackhouse? Can you describe what happens?"

I looked at him surprised. I was all worked up now and he wasn't focusing on the right thing. I shook my head. He ought to at least tell me I'm right.

"Um," I said, distracted for a second. And then dread pooled in my stomach. "I... I collapse. In the hall. When I hit this one soft floorboard. It reminds me of..." I so didn't want to say it. I didn't want to feel it again, and I already was. I had to squash it down. I had to push it away. It would pull me under otherwise.

"Miss Stackhouse, I want you to try an exercise with me, if you are willing."

My eyes had glazed in an effort not to demonstrate what happened when I had my spells right now. When he spoke I sat up a little straighter and looked at the doctor.

"That depends," I said, hesitant, crossing my arms over my chest and crossing my legs tight.

"On what?"

I set my jaw. "On what you want me to do. I've had an awful hard day and I don't feel like making it any worse."

The doctor looked at me soberly, considering this. At least one man in my life took my feelings seriously, I thought derisively.

"What if," he started slowly, "I could teach you ways to prevent the spells before they happened? What if you could recover from the spells more quickly?"

That little bubble of hope I felt last time I talked to Dr. Gumby floated up through me again. _Three months to a normal life_, I thought to myself. _I'd do just about anything not to keep feeling this way. _

I was still suspicious, but I nodded. I felt a little ashamed. What was it with me giving in to the men in my life lately?

Dr. Gumby looked nothing but proud of me and excited, and that made me feel a little better about it. He really did want what was best for me. And I didn't want to stay trapped in this house forever, either. I had to get out.

"Excellent, Miss Stackhouse. You are a very brave woman!" he beamed, pointing his pen into the air for emphasis. "Now, I want you to lean back against the pillows and get comfortable. Are you comfortable?"

And so began my first attempt to wade into the horror and come out the other side. Dr. Gumby had me close my eyes and breathe deeply for a few minutes. He led me through focusing on each muscle in my body, tensing it and then relaxing it. He had me do it several times until I felt almost human again. I wanted to weep, I felt so relieved.

Then, very quietly, he asked me to recount the last time I collapsed. Since the last time I'd collapsed was yesterday at the window, and I didn't want to open that can of worms, I decided to keep it simple. I told him about the end of my date with Eric, and how he was walking me back to my room when my foot hit the loose floorboard.

When my whole body started to tense at the memory, before I could even tell him where my mind went, Dr. Gumby stopped me and had me repeat the muscle relaxation exercise. In a very soft voice, he led me back through it. He didn't even seem to mind that I was crying and sobbing through it. He didn't try to comfort me or act like I was weak, and for that, I could have kissed his shiny demon face. He did it over and over again until I was calm.

Then he had me start my story over again. This time, I was more aware when my muscles started to tense up with dread and I told him so. He praised my awareness and had me stop and do the exercise again, encouraging me to breathe deep and listen to the sounds in the room now, remembering where I was now. I couldn't hear much just then. Just the soft rustle of the trees outside and the wind and the house settling. It was oddly soothing.

Then he had me continue again. This time I got a little further in the story. I told him about stepping on the board and how it reminded me of bones creaking--of my bones creaking--before I started hyperventilating and sobbing. He asked me to stop and repeat the process, all the while speaking softly and soothingly. It reminded me so much of my Gran soothing me after a nightmare that I cried even harder, this time in grief. I blessed the Lord for giving me sanity enough to call Dr. Gumby, for not backing down when my fear told me to send him away tonight. For taking the risk to try this.

He let me cry until I was calmer and I started trying to breathe deep again all on my own.

"You are a natural at this, Miss Stackhouse," he said approvingly before leading me through the exercise again and again until we got to the end of the memory: To the sound of creaking, to the feel of my bones bending, the sickening realization that bones _can_ bend, to the realization I'd had that I was going to die, and I was going to do it alone. To the feeling that I really was alone, that no one was coming for me.

That Eric didn't care about me.

At the end of the exercise, Dr. Gumby asked me to sit quietly and breathe deeply for a few minutes before he led me through the muscle exercise again.

"When we began tonight," he said softly, after I was relaxed, "you started by saying that your vampire did not care about you because he subjected you to that very triggering floor repair."

I shuddered at the memory and started to feel my muscles tense again, so I took a few more deep breaths, focusing on relaxing the muscles in question.

"That's very good, Miss Stackhouse."

I nodded.

"It is very interesting that at the pinnacle of your panic you seem to experience two persistent and debilitating fears: that you are going to die and that your Eric does not care for you."

Something in my chest shattered, like a bomb exploding, or a hard, heavy crystal ball shattering from the inside out, stabbing all my soft, worn parts. I started sobbing louder than I can ever remember sobbing in my life, except maybe once, and I couldn't think of that. I was raw and bloody now. The shattering tore out through my throat and eyes.

I collapsed forward on the bed.

Meanwhile, in some tiny part of my brain that wasn't flooded with this shattering, I could think. Every time I had collapsed, I had gone back to that horrible cave. And Dr. Gumby was right: It wasn't just that I was being tortured. It was that I was all alone in the world that was trying to kill me and that whatever fondness or claim I thought Eric had for me had been a lie.

Finally, after I'd calmed, Dr. Gumby said softly, in as non-threatening a manner as he could, "Is losing Eric akin to dying for you, Sookie?"

The shattered pieces twisted, ripping my remaining flesh to ribbons. I stared, wide-eyed. I couldn't answer. The question had short-circuited my brain. I furrowed my brow at him and tried to concentrate.

"Breathe deeply, Miss Stackhouse," he said calmly, and I realized I'd stopped breathing altogether. I took a deep breath and the burning in my lungs ceased but my brain was still frozen.

I shook my head just a little and stared into space. N-no. That couldn't be it, could it? A tiny part of my brain screamed, _YES_! Another told me there was more to it than that. Neither of them could climb out of my mouth just yet.

"It's quite all right, Miss Stackhouse," he said soothingly. "No need to answer now. It is a big question. I simply ask that you think about it. Perhaps you can share any insights you gain with me when we meet again on Wednesday. In the meantime, I would like you to practice this breathing technique every morning when you wake and every time you start to feel that panic coming on. Do not worry if you don't recognize the panic until you are well into it. This technique has been found in small studies to be helpful wherever you are in the post-traumatic memory when you use it."

I nodded, not seeing him. I watched the tall, skinny, shiny demon gather his things and leave my bedroom, thinking all the time about one big vampire and one very big hole in my chest.

**Eric's POV**

I rose to dust and old chips of paint in my hair and eyelashes, on my lips. I bolted up from the tiny space and into the modest guest room. Surely the contractors had not come in here. Surely Sookie had kept them out!

I sniffed and stood from my fighting stance. No human had been in this room today except for Sookie and she had--I sniffed again--been right above me. There were no sounds in the house but for my Sookie's slow breathing. The the house was silent and dark, just the way I like it.

I walked out into the hall and smiled broadly. The floorboards looked magnificent. I stepped on each of the replaced boards in the hallway to test them. Not a sound. Excellent. My bonded will no longer collapse.

I headed toward Sookie's room, anticipating her amorous reception of me but instead encountered another of the aide Bonita's notes.

_Good Evening, Mr. Northman,_

_Sookie slept very poorly last night and I'm afraid all the construction caused quite a reaction in her. She was upset for nearly four hours, even after the carpenters were done. She couldn't even hold down the Xanax and when she tried to nap, she had nightmares._

_It's my professional opinion that Sookie ought to be left alone tonight to catch up on sleep and recover. Should she wake, there are two meals in the fridge for her, marked with heating instructions. I could only get her to eat once today, and then Dr. Eugenides was here. She has been asleep since he left._

_The contractor let me know that he needs to return tomorrow to sand the boards and refinish the floor. I'm not sure that is a good idea for Sookie's nerves, but I leave that to your discretion. As always, please let me know if you have any special requests for Sookie in your morning note._

_Sincerely,_

_Bonnie_

I scowled at the note and cast my eyes about the hall. How had these few boards caused my Sookie so much distress? I shook my head and lowered my face into my hands. Of course. Power tools. Strangers. The sound of breaking wood. I had worried that Sookie might not be brave enough for this right now. I had not realized I was underestimating her reaction.

I would make it up to her. I would find a way.

As I had last week, I opened the door and spied my human. She was slumped face down on the mattress, head under the pillow, another pillow flung to the ground. Her breathing was slow and labored and I thought the position was not ideal for her. The thought of her beautiful breasts crushed beneath her pained me.

I walked down the hall, leaving the door open so I could hear the minutest changes in her breathing and pulse as I pulled my work supplies into the living room. I glided noiselessly back down the hall to the kitchen and heated a TrueBlood. As I took a swig of the metallic dreck I thought that perhaps it was part of my pennance.

I returned to the living room and opened my laptop, checking my messages as it booted up.

_Master, I have delivered the packages and arranged the construction crew for the Bon Temps house. Please let me know if you need anything else._

Beep.

_Sheriff, this is Sandy Seacrest. I look forward to meeting with you Tuesday evening, however, I was disturbed to discover that you were not available to confirm the appointment in person. I do hope all is well in your area. I look forward to reviewing the audit with you._

Beep.

_Hey there, Mr. Northman. This is Jimmy Mitchell from Mitchell Construction. Listen, we got all the boards in but Mrs. Northman seemed kinda upset that we were there. I wanted to let you know that we need to return tomorrow to do the finish work, and I want to make sure that she's aware of it this time. Could you call back to confirm what time we should arrive. I'd rather not get yelled at again. She can be kinda scary when she's mad, if you don't mind me saying so. I mean no disrespect. Sir. Please call back. Thank you, sir._

Beep. I chuckled at his deference to me. What had my little Bonded said to this human man to frighten him, so? What was I in store for this night? And Mrs. Northman?

_Hello again, Mr. Northman. This is Steven Liddicot, your CPA. I received the documents you had sent over. All seems to be in order. I should have them ready for you with any questions by dusk. As requested, I'll send the questions via email so they are easier to track. I will be available until 10 o'clock tonight if you would like to reach me. I'm looking forward to working with you. Thanks so much. Buh-bye._

Beep.

I flipped my phone shut and turned on the email program. Agitated, I rose and began arranging a fire in the fireplace. Should Sookie rise, I wanted to be prepared to offer her comfort.

I growled lowly at myself for my carelessness for my Bonded. I had attempted to make things better for her. Now it was likely I had alienated her some more. I could hear the fight now--or, worse, see the tears, the agony in her eyes. Her disappointment and fury. I would weather it, but I cursed myself. I was becoming careless already. This did not bode well for my survival.

*******

Most of the work was fairly easy: Answer a few questions for Liddicot; delegate a few tasks to Pam; arrange for the crew to come in the afternoon instead of the morning; write a note for Sookie along with another bouquet of flowers.

The hardest task lay ahead of me, and it was all typed out on the screen before me.

**Louisiana Area 5 Inventory Report Q1 2006--Projected**

_**Liabilities: **_

_2 drainings in the last two months_

_1 vampire-owned business closed _

_$25,000 in losses from a vampire who was swindled an unusually wily fangbanger._

_2 human deaths linked to vampires reported in the press_

_3 vampires who requested permission to move out of my area_

_1 final death (Clancy)_

_1 serious illness (Bill)_

_1 debt of obligation to the Shreveport Were pack (assistance in the defense of Sookie Stackhouse)_

One significant liability was nowhere to be seen on this sheet because it hadn't happened yet this year: There was no Fellowship activity to report, though I was waiting for Pam to update me on the status of this from our men on the inside.

_**Assets:**_

_75 vampires residing in the area._

_$265 million in vampire net worth._

_25 vampire-owned business._

_$50 million estimated in profits from vampire-owned businesses._

_15 vampire transplants to the area (though that number may increase after tomorrow night's meeting with the newcomers)_

_2 newly turned vampires, still with their makers_

And, at the top of that list, Bill's database and one telepathic human in Bon Temps, Louisiana. I sighed and scratched my head, resting my cheekbone on my palm. I would have to report on how Bill was recovering. The database would have survived fine without him--indeed, I would be better able to protect it than the young vampire would. However, his special expertise and talents were valuable to my masters, and therefore required upkeep. My nostrils flared in irritation.

And then there was my Sookie. I growled. How to characterize her? If I were not blood-bonded to her, if I were not pledged to her and, indeed, if she didn't fill my body with the need to both protect and destroy, I would move her to the liabiility column. She could not leave the house, and she was in no position to work for us any time soon.

If I revealed that, it's possible Sookie would fall off my masters' radar and therefore no longer attract attempts to kidnap or steal her away in some fashion. It was also possible, however, that my masters would release her from our protection--saving de Castro or not. However, it was more likely that they would order me to kill her. She knew far too much about the Byzantine nature of vampire politics. I would have to write carefully about her convalescence and her prognosis, which left her out of commission until the third quarter of the year, most likely.

As I started to type up my report on my Sookie, bloodlust welled. To kill Sookie's would-be attackers, of course, but also to... punish, somehow, that mulish human snoring lightly in the other room. If she had simply asked me to protect her as her Bonded and pledged instead of invoking de Castro's protection, I would not have been obligated to inform my masters of the Fairy War. As it was, I had had to do some careful talking to disguise Sookie's family tree. It was true that Sophie-Ann and Andre had known about Sookie's fae blood, but I knew she had other relatives--and one in particular--who carries her gift, and I knew Sookie would want me to protect him from vampire interest.

So I had stated simply that the fae had wanted to use her for their own corporate interests.

It wasn't far-fetched. The fae--and Niall in particular--own some of the most lucrative biotech companies in the world. The fae had as much call to exploit Sookie's talents as any other supe--or, indeed, any other person. My masters had accepted it without note, wanting to maintain their claim on her. They had allowed my pledging to her because it kept her under vampire control--and they would tolerate that it also meant that she could not be taken from me.

But then word of the true nature of the Fairy War circulated, and suspicions rose. If, on top of those suspicions, they believe me to be an inadequate protector of their precious asset, it is possible they would try to take Sookie from me despite our pledging, especially if they could manipulate Sookie into claiming that she no longer wished to be bound to me.

This was no time for her to be recalcitrant.

I continued to type, delicately writing around her relation to the war, her injuries and her recovery period, emphasizing how well she was doing and the efforts I was making personally to ensure the repair of their most important asset. I would keep Sookie in the asset category, with a caveat.

I moved on to explaining our liabilities: Each one must be accounted for. I detailed the capture of the drainers and their subsequent interrogation, which yielded proof that they were not connected to the Fellowship (far from a church, he Fellowship is a front for anti-vampire organized crime that organizes and grooms drainers, and trafficks in v and forced prostitution of fangbangers they could not "convert." Come to think of it, perhaps they weren't so different from the Inquisitors I had known--though even in their viciousness they thought small).

I explained that we had tracked and killed the cunning fangbanger who had fleeced young Wiley Metisse.

I explained that the deaths of the two fangbangers had been traced to the same Metisse, and that the police had been glamoured into allowing a vampire in to heal the fang marks and thereby destroy their case. Metisse had been bound by silver for one day in the Area's secret warehouse in downtown Shreveport as punishment.

I described the circumstances of the departure of the three vampires. Unsurprisingly, Metisse was one of them. I listed where each vampire listed as his destination.

And then it was time to describe the losses associated with the Fairy War.

That's when I heard Sookie's pulse begin to race erratically and her breathing catch. The low sob had just begun when I laid myself out on the bed next to her and pulled her to me.

*******

"I'm mad at you," she snuffled as she twisted in my arms to curl into my chest more fully. I pulled her close but delicately, waiting for her to roar at me, to launch herself from the bed and begin stomping around. She did none of these things. She simply cried onto my shirt. I waited and watched, running a soothing hand down her back.

I kissed her hair. She smelled intoxicating. My fangs ran out partially.

"Tell me," I said softly, enjoying the warmth of her body against mine for the first time this night. Her breasts pressed, full and alluring, into me. "What did you dream?"

But she did not answer. Instead, I watched as she breathed deeply and rhythmically and I felt her tense her calves, her thighs, her butt, her stomach, all the way up to her forehead.

She sighed deeply, her pulse back to normal and finally opened her eyes.

She looked up and kissed me, softly at first, tentatively. How different this creature was from the one who dove into me in the shower last night. Her fingers went up to trace the side of my face, sending ripples of pleasure into my skin and making me harder. Naturally, I kissed her back, mimicking her softness and slowness, though my need for her was anything but. I knew we would fight this night, that she would call me on account for my carelessness. But for now, she was pliant and yielding and clearly needed something from me. I would give all she asked for.

She made a quiet whimpering sound as the kiss grew in length, and it almost sounded like one of her keening sobs. Her mouth opened wider, her eyes on me shyly, fear there, her hands still tracing my face, my back. Something about her eyes, her expression quieted my lust. She needed something, something deep and profound. She was just as lost as she had been that first night. This was a quiet need, but it was just as deep.

I began to move on her just a little, carefully. I watched her as we kissed. A small crease appeared between her eyebrows, and she looked like she was trying to puzzle something out. Her deep blue eyes were sad. She was flushed, but looked even younger than her scant 27 years suddenly. She looked so breakable that my protective instinct grew in kind. I had the sudden desire to patrol the perimeter of her grounds, to kill the men who had been her during my daytime rest, when I couldn't protect her. To keep any man away from her, human, shifter, were, fairy, goblin, pixie, demon, witch--anything.

I leaned into her, rolling her to her back and petting her hair away from her face. I hoped whatever she was looking for in my face she was finding. Her lips were unbearably soft. I licked them, sucked them, gently. I slipped my thigh between hers, pressing down, enjoying how we indented the mattress, memorizing her like this, my hand tracing down her arm, up her side, along the side of her breast, down her stomach, up her hip and around to her fine bottom. I pulled her to me more tightly and she shivered and then stilled, sighing against me. She was mine. _Mine_. No one could take her from me. I would die my final death before I allowed it.

I crushed my lips down on hers, molding them to mine.

I began moving in slow, teasing kisses down to that spot behind her ear I know she loves and she groaned.

"Oh, Eric," she breathed so quietly a human man would have mistaken her for simply mouthing the words. But to me, no sound had ever been more arousing. "I think I lo--"

A loud banging came from the front door and a high, chirping voice. "Knock-knock! LightSafe calling!"

And just like that, Sookie's eyes flew toward the door and she swallowed her words. Her heart was beating irregularly again, and I placed my hand on her back to soothe her.

I was so shocked I let her crawl out from under me and just like that, I was left alone in her bed, craving her words.


	19. Chapter 19: Want

**A/N: **Sorry for the delay in getting this one out to you guys. It turns out that this week was the week my six-year relationship ended. So I've been a little distracted. And truthfully, I'm not sure how excited I'm going to be about writing more angst and love. I have enough of that in my own life. But no promises. I'm hoping to keep at it, because I have a feeling it could help me work through some feelings. And besides, I love these crazy kids.

So we'll see. Anyway, this chapter goes out to latbfan, who wants more Bill the way some crazy SNL guys want more cowbell. Or something. :)

Keep those reviews and comments coming. I love 'em.

Hope you enjoy it.

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Disclaimer: **These characters belong to Charlaine Harris.

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Chapter 19: Want**

**Sookie's POV**

I felt like I was wading through some heavy magic. Every step was harder to take, and my whole body screamed at me to turn back, to return to my bed where a very sweet, big, scary, strong and probably confused vampire was laying.

I shook myself and soldiered on. Maybe it's for the best. I was just swept up in my conversation with Dr. Gumby from earlier. I need more time to think on it, to get used to it. I felt like I was coming out of my skin.

But before I could get to the front door, Eric was in front of me. His face was expressionless as ever but his eyes--oh those eyes. So wide you could see the whites all around. And so blue. Haunted, longing. I took in an involuntary breath. He looked the way he had just before we walked into Pam's house for the Witch War planning session.

_We could go back. We could go back to your house. I can stay with you always. We can know each others bodies in every way, night after night. _

_I could love you._

I gulped and shook myself. All I wanted was to pull him back to bed and straddle him and feel his big hands holding my hips to him, to press my chest against his. Breath strangled in my throat and my hand flew up to cover my mouth, which was gasping. I took the last shaky step into Eric's arms and he captured me, curling his arms around me and kissing my hair. In a moment I realized I was crying silent tears.

I blinked furiously, trying to hold back the thought, trying to hold back the grief. But I couldn't. _I'm going to lose you. I'll die,_I thought. The shattered bits in my chest flamed and burned again. I struggled to right my thinking to get ahold of my breath, to use the exercises Dr. Gumby had taught me. I heard myself gasping for breath and then I realized we were moving backwards down the hall back to my bedroom.

"No," I managed to get out weakly, even as I felt my body go limp against his. "Eric, no!" My hands moved of their own accord to flutter frantically around his chest, reassuring myself, I guessed. He'd laid me carefully back on the bed and was poised over me, those big, wide eyes looking at me, seeing--this. Whatever this craziness was that I was experiencing now. He stroked my hair away from my temples and I turned to kiss his palm. He let out a little sound of pleasure.

"Tell me, Sookie." His voice was so tender.

I shook a little in reaction, all those shattered bits vibrating at the sound of his voice. I shook my head and looked way.

There was another knock at the door, this time louder. Compulsively, to distract myself, I scanned the brains around the house. The big void in front of me (I'm sure he wouldn't like to be called that), two human brains on the porch, one clearly belonging to the chirpy lady who'd called to us and the other some man who was grumbling about having to come to the middle of nowhere for an estimate.

And another void, out by the trees. I swallowed hard, my pulse racing and my mind struggling to catch up. Panic sprang out of me in sweat on my forehead and palms, though I didn't know why. Vampires hadn't been the cause of my suffering for a while now. Not physically, anyway.

"Eric! There's a vampire out there!"

Eric nodded and just like that he was gone and my body felt colder still.

***

The big guy, Clint the light inspector, lumbered down the stairs heavily and landed in the hallway with an effort, exhaling in relief. He was balding and had one of those bellies that were a perfect, round circle, jutting out in front of him like he was 10 months pregnant.

"Well, I'd say your best option is to enclose this stairwell and turn the upstairs into your light-tight chamber," Clint started. "See, what you've got up there is sufficient space to prevent light from inadvertently getting in when you," and here he pointed at me with his pencil, "are moving around during the day. Down here, it'll be a little more dodgy. Course, you can do it. It'll probably just mean installing interlocking doors on either side of the hallway here so that you can't accidentally light up your vampire during the day."

He stuck his pencil behind his ear and stared at me.

I was dumbfounded and a little overwhelmed. I just thought we'd get some light-tight shutters for the windows and a security lock on the bedroom door and be done with it. I hadn't thought about how to keep the light out when I was up during the day. Suddenly I could see all the ways Eric could be in danger if he were in my bed during the day, and I flashed to the horrified shriek he'd let out when he'd seen the sun in Rhodes. I bit my lip and leaned back against him, exhausted.

Eric was there, solid as a wall. He had returned from seeking out the vampire in my yard and was putting a comforting arm around me. I looked up at him, trying to steady myself.

"Well," I started. And then stopped. "I never even thought of using the upstairs rooms. No one's ever really lived in them but a friend of mine who moved our recently." I had to stop to take some deep breaths to calm myself when I thought of Amelia and Tray. "And it's too hot during the summer for me up there. And it's awful low--the ceiling, I mean. I don't think that would be too comfortable for him."

I looked up, up, up at Eric and though his face was a mask his eyes sparkled. My stomach twisted uncomfortably. I knew he was up to something and I wasn't sure I could handle it after the floor debacle this morning. I set my gaze and shook my head almost imperceptibly to tell him to back off.

He smirked.

I turned away from him in disgust, pushing off him to stand on my own and out of his grasp.

"I think we ought to stick to your bedroom for now," he said, squeezing my shoulders.

_For now?_ Oh no he doesn't. He's not highjacking this whole house. I know that glint in his eyes. He's so sure he's going to win. I shook my head and walked into my bedroom and waited for the rest to catch up with me. They did. We all stared at it and it was a little embarrassing. I was glad old Clint wasn't a shifter or anything because if he were, I was sure he'd smell what we'd been doing in this room the last few days. I was relieved I'd managed to make the bed before I'd answered the door tonight. I'd been so embarrassed that I'd kept them waiting for so long--first when Eric dragged me back to the room and then when I had to take a few breaths to open the door to let them in. This whole regular-life thing was more trying than I thought.

"Will it be safe enough for him to be out in the open here?" I asked to no one in particular, scanning the room and imagining all the things that might pose a threat. It was kind of like thinking about baby-proofing a house. Suddenly, all you saw were sharp corners and exposed light sockets. Maybe I was just too wrung out and irritable but I felt myself getting silly. That's it: Vampire-proofing. I struggled to hold in a giggle.

"Well, you've got a couple options there," Clint chimed in from behind me, ignorant of where my tired mind was taking me. I turned to see him reach for that pencil again. He flicked the eraser end of the pencil toward the windows. "You could get metal shutters that you lock manually or shutters with a natural light sensor that know when dawn is coming and slide down automatically. They do the same at dusk, rising when all danger is gone. Or you can get windows with those kinds of screens installed between the panes of glass. That's not only good for light-tight purposes but also reduces drafts and'll cut your energy bill."

I stopped him. I needed to know a few things, like could the shutters be overridden if I were here during the day without Eric. No reason to have a pitch-black room if I don't have to. I love waking to the sun, I realized with a pang. Maybe there was more to think about here than I'd considered. Clint nodded and told me about extras and the security precautions built into them to make sure just anybody couldn't override them.

"Now." Here he flicked the eraser of the pencil toward the bed. "You got another option. See, some of our clients--" He wouldn't say "vampires." I could read in his mind that the word embarrassed him--kind of like saying "black" in front of some black folks made some white folks uncomfortable--pointing out how you're different from them and, by extension, worse. I frowned at him.

"Some of 'em like another option--a kind of Plan B. So what we could do is create a secondary space for him to rest during daylight, under the bed here in an inconspicuous frame made to look like under-bed storage. Or we could renovate the closet over here to create a false front of drawers that hides a luxurious resting place, with your real closet above it."

I turned to look at my closet. I felt my heart thump faster and Eric was watching me so I knew he could tell, too.

Clint, of course, was oblivious. He turned to flick the pencil eraser toward the door we'd just come through. "And then there's the interlocking doors that really are a must. You'll probably also want a security code both on the door to this room and the doors to the kitchen and living room."

I looked around, stunned. It was a lot to take in. And it all meant a lot of construction. I wished we could wait till I could get out of the house, and I suddenly thought maybe I would. But then I had been missing him something awful during the day...

While I warred with myself, Eric crossed his arms over his chest and just watched me.

I looked up at him, dazed.

Dazed because suddenly the reality of it hit me. _Eric was living with me._ I wasn't just keeping him till he was better. He wasn't just staying over a couple nights like Bill had. I was living with my kinda-boyfriend/vampire husband whom I may or may not love. Whom it might kill me to lose. Who may or may not have intentions of staying with me for the long-haul. Who was a big shot vampire and had already as much as said that he wouldn't die for me, wouldn't put me first. I felt lightheaded and looked up to see Eric's eye's following me. I sat on my bed.

"Could you all give me a minute? I'll join you in the living room and we can talk about finishes and stuff."

Clint grunted and stuck his pencil back behind his ear and lumbered off toward the living room. Eric stayed behind and watched me for a minute.

"I'm fine," I said to his unasked question. I patted my face to encourage myself to stop sweating in panic. I took one shaky, deep breath and held it for a few seconds the way Dr. Gumby taught me and then exhaled as slowly as I could. "Really. Please. I just need a minute alone."

He gave me a warning look and then nodded once and closed the door behind him as he left.

In the cool quiet of my bedroom--of Gran's old room--I laid myself flat on my bed and looked up at he cracks and chipped paint in the old ceiling.

Suddenly, it felt like everything was speeding up. He was having the floor redone. He was moving his stereo in here and his clothes. Soon, I'd have to make room in my closet for him--maybe literally, but certainly his clothes. I'd have to clear out a drawer so he could put all the red underpants he wants in there. And his Fangtasia t-shirts.

I just didn't know.

"Gran, what do I do?" I whispered into the air.

Absently, to soothe myself, I scanned the house and the surroundings for brains again. That's when I caught it. A vampire brain out my bedroom window.

**Bill's POV**

_How did it end up this way?_ I asked myself as I leaned heavily on a tree just outside the ring of her security light. My body felt leaden, heavy and I found I could move no faster than a human. My throat was dry and burned with hunger.

At least my sight hadn't been affected.

Inside her house, my sweetheart moved around easily, talking to two humans and Eric. I scowled. I was pleased, at least, to see that she was healing. Though I may hate Eric until my last sunrise, I had to admit he could do something for her now that I could not: He could heal her with his blood. His blood was not polluted as was mine. His blood was ancient and powerful.

Still I would do nothing different. Seeing my dear sweet Sookie bound and gouged and tortured, crying dry tears and nearly catatonic with pain, had set my old blood to boil. I would stab and bite that fairy dozens of times, I would take any amount of silver, indeed I would drink it molten to save her again.

Perhaps one day my actions might show her what my words never could: I loved her. I had always loved her. I always would. It would my honor to die in her stead.

I shoved away from the tree and walked heavily, sounding almost like a human shuffling through the dried and mulching leaves, toward her bedroom door. I stopped just on the lip of the circle of light. I did not wish to be discovered and sent away a second time this night by the sheriff, who was rubbing himself against Sookie as if to further make his point. I scowled. He could not love her as I did. He had not shown it as I had. She could not choose him.

I thought all that absently, seething, though I knew my place. He would be within his rights to punish me if he caught me again tonight, but I could not take my eyes from my beloved. Though she would not have me, she had thoroughly bewitched me. I was hers, always, whether she chose another or not.

I rested my hands in my pockets and clench my jaw. It seemed my Sookie, my beautiful southern girl, so like the strong, fiery farm women of my human life, may yet make her choice for the sheriff. The LightSafe truck was like a stab of silver in my undead veins when I saw it this night on my nightly walk. When I saw the truck this night, I knew something significant had changed. This is not like last week, when I could easily hear Sookie berating the sheriff for his carelessness with her feelings. I had been so proud then.

Ah but then... But then I saw the demon leave the house a few nights ago, and heard the sound of their lovemaking last night. I had watched Eric make preparations, move about the home during Sookie's rest. Every movement of his stabbed me anew. He was growing into his role has her bonded, I realized with not a small amount of grief.

I was not here to see him when he lost his memory last year--I was glad, I could not have bared it--but I imagined he behaved similarly. Who knows--perhaps he was imulating the Eric Sookie had fallen for during the curse, to convince her that he is something he could never be: In love, loyal, faithful. It was so disingenuous, this human charade--especially given the cruelty of which I knew him personally capable. This house-husband role, it did not suit him, and I wondered what he was up to, how he had manipulated my Sookie into closing off a room so he would not have to rest in a secret compartment like the rest of his kind.

I clenched my hands in my pockets and heard the seam tear just a little from the pressure. Eric's game. I could see it now: First light-tighting, then luring her to his nest. Then, eventually, she would wear his fang marks proudly at Fangtasia and allow herself to be called his and all the sweetness and innocence that is her birthright and her unique gift--far more than her telepathy--would be snuffed out. Nothing beautiful survived Eric. It was ground to dust. I had seen it in Eric's women over and over again. He survived. They did not.

Sookie deserved better, I grumbled to myself, all the while keenly aware of my own helplessness and and the black marks on my own soul. She should have everything. She should have the family and the love she wants. She should not have to compromise. I could never have given that to her. Perhaps it is best she has not chosen me. But Eric was no better a match. Far worse. I was sure of it.

My undead heart ached for my sweetheart and my own deception.

As I allowed myself to wallow and fret, something surprising happened. I watched as she grew grave and panicked as she stood in her bedroom with Eric and the human man. She sent them away. All of them.

I felt it in my injured bones: This was my chance. Perhaps my only chance at privacy with my beloved. I walked into the glare of the security light and stopped back from the meager flower garden.

She looked so beautiful, even when she was in obvious confusion and pain, as she was just then. My Sookie. I had never seen this look on her face before and I could not restrain the impulse to move closer to her.

When she was mine--my body thrilled at the memory--I had never given her cause to wear that expression.

And then I stepped back a half a step and looked down at my rumpled plaid shirt and chinos, unwilling to behold such beauty, knowing what I had done.

After all, she had not worn this particular expression of conflict and doubt. But I had seen worse. I had seen her face twisted in suffering at my own hand, I recalled, a nauseous shame swirling in my chest. I had seen her twisted in loss and betrayal and rage.

Perhaps I should go. I could hardly stand to raise my head to her beauty knowing the pain I'd caused her.

But then I noticed a small movement out of the corner of my eye, and glanced up to see that she had disappeared from my view and I instinctively stepped to the window to investigate. She must be well. I muse ensure she is well, Eric's orders be damned.

I breathed a deep, unnecessary sigh of relief, the effort reminding me of all the times I had pantomimed breathing for this warm, strong human girl. The memory shot through me, reminding me of the dull ache of silver still in my system. I smarted, clutching my neck where the fairy had bitten.

Once there, I found I could not look away. She was laying on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. The soft, unbound flesh of her breasts heaved on her chest. My cock twitched at the sight. I automatically remembered seeing her like this, in that bed, the first time. Her in that ridiculous sleep shirt, laying there, looking at me with such intense desire and surprise and something I discovered later was self-consciousness. A virgin. I shook my head. In my 150 years as a vampire, I had yet to meet a virgin of her age--even in the 1910s and 20s, women had snuck off with their beaus and consented to sex. That is why marriages happened so frequently among the young. Oh but she... She had been a rare gift. A gift I had unwittingly taken.

Whether I was a good enough man then to have deserved that gift, I cannot say. But I would make myself a good enough man now. I would repent until the dawn claimed me. And should she ever accept me again, I would not make the same mistakes. I felt the truth of it in my muscles, which flexed with the impulse to lay with her once again.

Just then, I heard her heart beating quickly and erratically. She mumbled something, some plea, and I strained to hear it with my damaged senses. My heart soared for a moment. _She is not decided. There is still time._

And so I took the risk that I know could mean my final death, or at least delay my healing by a few years. I stepped up to her window and placed my hand on the cool glass.

Suddenly, my sweetheart sat up and turned toward me. She was flushed and beautiful. I could vaguely make out her heart beating quickly. My mouth grew dry at the memory of her blood. My cock stiffened reflexively.

She looked me in the eye and for one long moment, I wondered if she would call Eric, if she would banish me. Instead, she rushed toward the window and then hesitated. Slowly, she placed her hand to mirror mine on the glass, and I could swear I could feel her heat blessedly seeping into me.

I dropped my head in a deep, reverent nod.

"Bill, you're alive!" Sookie whispered, a relieved smile spreading on her face. Something inside me lifted and eased. I would live in that smile if I could. There were tears in her eyes. Hope shot through me to see it.

I smile a small smile. "Not quite."

Sookie rewarded me with a larger smile as she laughed and nodded her head tearily.

Standing there, my hand pressed to hers through the glass, seeing her joy in my survival, I had a glimpse of another future. We could have it all again. I could have her in my bed. I could offer her the kind of quiet country life she deserves and lavish her with love. I would marry her. I would worship her.

She could be mine.

But I was brought back to reality by the sounds coming from the living room. There I could hear the grating, high-pitched voice of a woman talking about the advantages of stainless steel vs. titanium, and of fronts that would allow metal doors to blend in with Sookie's decor.

Ah yes, I thought wearily. The 1,000-year-old, murderous vampire in the living room. Regretfully, I tore my eyes from my sweetheart's and glanced at the frame of the window, how perhaps the next time I saw it, it would be covered or even replaced with a shade that would allow Eric to rest with his arms around this beautiful, warm, virtuous human. I felt a cold rage burn through me and restrained myself from tearing at the sill and taking Sookie back to my home, to save her from her naivete.

She would not tolerate such behavior, and I had not yet won back her trust. I pulled back my hand from the window and placed it back in my pocket.

Sadly, I said, "So. For Eric?"

And just like that, my sweetheart's joy crumpled. The light faded from her eyes. She furrowed her brow and dropped her gaze from mine. I felt the loss acutely. She opened her mouth to say something then closed it. And suddenly the light moment was gone and the look in her eyes filled me with horror.

The nausea rose in my throat and I nearly regurgitated my last feeding. Loss. Rage. Betrayal. Grief. Pride. She pierced me through with them and I took an involuntary step away from her. I averted my eyes. Nothing I did would ever make it up to her. Perhaps--oh, I hesitate to even form the thought into words--perhaps I had well and truly lost my chance with Miss Sookie Stackhouse.

She crumpled from my view and I could hear her sobs on the other side of the wall.

I was just turning to leave when I saw Eric's angry and tensed form looming over her, his hands fisted, jaw flexed, a murderous look in his eyes. All of it was trained squarely on me.

I made my retreat.

**Sookie's POV**

_For Eric. For Eric?_ My first thought--before I could think, before I could reason or rein myself in, was, _I would have done it for you, too. You could have had all of this. you could have slept in my bed with me during the day. I would have loved it._

And then I saw him for what he'd become: Weak and almost mortal, no better than any man, no worse. He'd loved me, maybe. He never tired of telling me. And when I needed to be saved, he was there. And he was paying the price now.

But all I could think was, _Anything. I would have done anything for you. I _did_ do anything for you--I compromised myself for you. I killed for you,_ I was thinking, my heart sinking. _I took a stake for you._

My knee hit the floor with a sharp pain and then I was clinging desperately to the window sill, sobbing, eyes squeezed tight, trying to push away the feeling. Rage and deep despair ripped through me and held me, pressing me under, keeping me from breathing. _You have nothing,_ some raspy, horrible voice whispered in my head, not my own. _Nothing! You're all alone._

_No one loves you._

I sobbed louder, but I could barely hear it through the ringing in my ears.

But then I wasn't , muscular arms pulled me up like a ragdoll, carrying me to the bed and dropping me there like a sack of potatoes.

Everything hurt. I was ragged, raw, lost. My eyes wouldn't focus. But then the big, cool body got up to leave and I panicked.

"No! N-no, don't leave!" I whispered, reaching weak arms out after him. I grasped at the fabric of a shirt but it slipped through my fingers before I could stop him.

"I will return," came the hard, vicious voice. I shivered in terror, in loss. _All alone. Alone._

**Eric's POV**

Waiting for Sookie was an unpleasant task. I sat sprawled in one of her old wing chairs, my fingers steepled as I watched the human Clint and the brittle, bleached-blond woman Doris, who had been the one who had interrupted Sookie and I's moment earlier this night. Doris had arranged a number of sample panels around the room, displaying different paint colors and finishes for the interlocking doors, and samples of the metal shutters.

She smiled at me nervously and I busied myself by watching the pulse in her neck throb. Her smell was mundane, uninteresting. I wished to complete this transaction quickly and return Sookie to her bed so we may complete our evening. I did not relish telling her about my work commitment tomorrow night.

I toyed with glamouring the woman, entering her mind and turning her face blank for a second before releasing her again. The man was looking nervously at his paperwork. Good. I had little patience for this interruption.

And then my patience ran out completely. First a sudden gasp of breath from my Bonded and then a hammering heartbeat, and by the time I reached her, she was sobbing on the floor in front of the window. The stricken face of that ass Bill Compton filled the window. I knew not exactly what had happened but I knew he was to blame. I seethed with homicidal rage, careful to be gentle with my Bonded as I moved her to the bed. It was unsafe for me to hold her when I was that angry, as I could easily snap her bones without intending to. But the need to hold her close, to keep her from hurting herself overtook my body and allowed me to modulate my grasp on her.

Compton. I had already dismissed him this night. He was more than a pest now. He would be stricken quite literally as soon as I could safely leave my Bonded to sleep. I growled lowly at Compton and he heard it through the glass. He wisely lowered his eyes to the ground and moved away, retreating to the trees and his miserable home beyond.

I gathered my beautiful Bonded from the floor and cradled her to me, running my mouth over her hair. I lowered her to the bed and turned to eject the light-tighteners from the house.

But she would not have it, and her desperation alarmed me. I was reminded again of my own mother, of the pyre, of the cuts on their faces. She clutched at me desperately, seeking to keep me with her. I found in my body a sudden need to keep her close as well, to kill trespassers and threats. And all I could think was that anyone besides my Bonded and myself fit into that category and must be destroyed.

In the moment between thought and decision, I wavered: To stay with my Bonded as she clearly needed or to rid the house of invaders, as would keep her safe? It was an ambivalence I was not used to and it chaffed. But the answer was obvious and the solution instantaneous. I pulled back from her regretfully, willing myself to ignore the part of me that tore open when she begged me to stay.

It only fed my rage. My Bonded would never beg again.

"Out." I ordered darkly as I stalked into the living room. Without another word, I began pulling the samples from the floor and piled them in the brittle blond's arms.

"Is Miss Stackhouse not feeling well?" asked the frail woman, craning her head around the corner to sneak a look at my Bonded in her vulnerable state. I loomed over her and bared my fangs, blocking her view.

"Now," I whispered, looking directly into the woman's frightened eyes, her face going placid. I plucked the memory of this visit out of her head and replaced it with a memory of getting lost on the country road.

No one would threaten my Bonded. I growled again and she jumped, tottering toward the door with her chin-high stack of props.

The man was already heading for the door, much too slowly for my liking. His pulse was racing out of control and sweat was dewing on his bald pate. I growled and bared my fangs at him as well--not an idle threat. I caught his eyes and burrowed into his brain, snatching all his memories of me in this house and memories of my Bonded in pain.

"G--g'night," the woman said in confusion as I shoved her out the door and locked it.

Moments later I was curled in bed with my sobbing woman. I reached to pull her to me, but the instant I laid myself out on the bed, Sookie was on me, pulling me to her, grasping at me desperately. The frenzy unsettled my already-rampant bloodlust. I ached to hunt down Compton and tie him to his front porch with silver until dawn took him, but it was clear I was needed here. That he should have this power over her, to so undo her on a night when she was already fragile was unacceptable. He would pay and pay dearly.

To let an enemy escape went against all my training and instincts, but a greater instinct was growing in me. I had to be here, to comfort her, to remove this pain. Another danger to her and my survival, I realized grimly. Another weakness. But it hardly seemed to matter when I could feel her warm and safe in my arms.

I pulled her close, wrapping an arm tightly around her shoulders, crushing her to me, needing to feel her pulse against my body, to know that she was alive and whole. My hands roamed her, instinctually checking for injuries and tears. I sniffed the air, seeking enemies. I found none but could not restrain the need to keep searching with every sense.

But then my Sookie struggled against me, gasped to pull away. I loosened my grip just slightly. She sniffled and pressed herself against me and then pulled away just as quickly, suddenly intent on discarding my shirt.

Not understanding and not caring why, I obliged her. I whipped my shirt off and reached for my pants when Sookie put her hand on mine.

"No. Just this. Please. Please." Her voice was shaky, raw. I had heard it once before in this tone and I struggled not to crush her with my remembered rage.

I stared at her. She would not meet my eyes, she just clung to me urgently, turning her face to press her cheek into my dead chest hard. Then she pressed back once more and began tearing off her robe and gown, leaving her only in tiny panties. My growl caught in my throat. I did not understand what was happening.

"Just... Just hold on to me now. Tighter," she sobbed and I felt her hot tears on my chest. "Don't let me go. Please."

I reached down and kissed her.

"Oh no, dear one," I said into her delicious hair. "Never."

I pulled her to me at first slowly, worried she would jerk, would pull away again just as suddenly as she had sought me. But she did not. She was shaking, shivering as she had done a week ago on this night.

I gripped my arms around her while she sobbed, as tight as I could. I could feel every inch of her pressed to me, her legs tangled with mine, her head nestled into my collarbone. Eventually, the sobbing passed and all that remained was the shuddering. It passed over her as waves crashed on the shore, rhythmic and unrelenting and, just like that first night a week ago, fully outside her control.

Since it had worked that night, I merely held her and waited--waited for her to calm, waited for this devil to finish his game and release her back to me, for my own bloodlust to subside and return me to a being capable of loving her. Her naked body against mine soothed in its own way. Perhaps that is what she sought as well. Just contact. Her grip against me was ferocious.

I rocked her lightly, kissing her forehead, holding her tight. She would not be taken by the madness this night. She would not leave me. She would not injure herself. I would protect her even if it meant killing that bastard Compton and blaming it on the silver.

**Sookie's POV**

I must have passed out, I realized as I stirred. My head was full of cotton and my neck hurt. I cursed myself for forgetting my breathing exercises. I guess when you're in the middle of a meltdown, silly things like breathing go right out the window.

When I woke, I was still clinging like a barnacle to Eric's big old body. First I was just aware of his body, of the strong heft of it, of how tightly he was holding me. For a miracle, I was filled deep contentment and safety. It seemed to have seeped into all my little, broken crevices. And wherever the dead thing was, it seemed to have slithered right out of me for the moment. I'd admit I was unsettled by the feeling of utter calm, by the fact that it was obviously the result of being near Eric, but at the moment, I couldn't bring myself to care. In the cold light of day, I might revisit it, but for now, I greedily held him to me.

I took a deep breath and held it in, keeping the scent of him inside me as long as possible. That's when I realized we were both naked. I didn't remember him stripping me and I didn't remember him stripping but somehow there we were, naked and cuddling.

Eric was in downtime and I, of course, was exhausted and my head was pounding. I hated having these fits and was mortified that I'd had yet another one in front of Eric. And--oh Lord!--in front of the light-tighting people too. Oh, they must have thought I was a loon. My cheeks started to flush with the realization but I fought it. I felt contented so rarely these days. I didn't want to let it go so easily, and I clung tighter to Eric, pressing my face more closely into his hard, cool chest.

Eric must have sensed me rouse because he shifted and suddenly he was kissing my temple and stroking my back. I took another deep breath, enjoying the fullness and satisfaction in my belly and chest. And another and another. I nuzzled closer to him, holding him at his muscled sides, caressing his ribs. I kissed his chest.

His hand started moving on me. First just his big hand stroking down my back, and then his strong fingers began working on the knots in my neck and shoulders. I shivered, and I can only say it was with relief. I bent further into him, giving him better access to my neck.

I kissed his neck and heard a little, raspy moan escape my throat. I was so weak from all my falling out earlier in the day that I couldn't even move my hand to stroke his chest.

"Mmmm... My Sookie," I heard his deep voice coo. Tears sprung to my eyes. Suddenly I remembered another time I woke with this man in my bed. Then, I'd wished it had been Bill. Now.... Oh, now I wanted to crawl inside him and stay forever.

I shook a little. Just a tremor, and I couldn't help it.

"Shhh," he crooned at me, and I was surprised at his gentleness. A cool wet kiss landed on my forehead, and then I felt his lips move down my hairline to my ear. "My Sookie."

For some reason, it didn't bother me. I just craned my neck and so he could kiss my ear and behind it. A little flutter started in my stomach and I was filled with sweetness.

"Eric," I whispered. "Thank you."

Out of nowhere a thought popped in my head: This feels right. I _want_ this.

I opened my tear crusted eyes and looked at the big vampire in my bed. Eric pulled my face up to his and looked me in the eyes. The look there... Well it was tender and sweet, if a big, scary vampire like Eric could be said to be sweet. So determined, with a tiny furrow between his brows. So _certain_. His face was breathtakingly beautiful and so intent on mine, so unwavering. Slowly he lowered his face to mine, kissing me gently. When he finally pulled away, he whispered, "It is my honor."

My breath caught in my throat, and I wanted to push this feeling away and jump into it at the same time. I looked away but Eric pulled me back till I was looking at him again, into those soft blue eyes, so full of care. I felt unease creep up my back even while my stomach did summersaults. I swear, there has never been a person whose body was so in conflict as mine. I concentrated on the quiet of the room, on the settling of the house and of the sound of the refrigerator in the kitchen and of the soft rustling of fallen leaves on the ground outside. I felt the cool of the house and the season on my face.

I tried to watch Eric, to distract myself from whatever he was seeing in my face. He was so still. No need to breathe, no heart beat, but undeniably alive. Undeniably, this big ole Viking was holding me close and looking at me with those ancient eyes, with a look that said that I might be the most valuable thing he'd ever held. Hot tears welled in my eyes as he just watched me, unwaveringly. He kissed me again, gently, his eyes never leaving mine. I felt very fragile all of a sudden--and that's not a feeling I'm used to or want to get used to.

I squirmed.

Eric didn't relent. "Dear one," he breathed, and kissed me softly again. The contentment bloomed in my chest and I felt my resistance start to crumble. His eyes were as soft as his kisses. My breath caught and I blinked away tears. He was looking at my lips and then into my eyes, studying me, in no hurry to move on to anything else. He murmured something in his foreign language and kissed me again, holding my gaze all the while. I had to work hard to remember to breathe.

"You are safe," he whispered, pressing his eyes into mine as if he were trying to glamour safety into me. Despite myself, I appreciated the effort. What I wouldn't give to just wipe all these bad memories out of my head.

I didn't want to remember. And just now it seemed like I might be able to push all those thoughts aside. Hadn't Dr. Gumby told me to concentrate on the here and now? And wasn't the here and now mighty nice just now?

I leaned in and kissed Eric, tentatively at first, and then I just let go. I let the contentment and sweetness in my belly snake up through my lips and to the vampire who had picked me up and held me close and looked at me... like that. As I massaged his lips with mine, sucking his bottom lip into my mouth, pulling softly, I put my hand on his cheek. Holding him close, kissing like this, something about it made me feel like we were the only two people in the world, living or dead.

Eric let me go on like this, his eyes still soft, for a long while. Eventually, Eric took his big hands from my back and turned me over, away from him. I could only be confused for a moment, because then Eric slid up behind me and whispered that sweet, ancient word to me again. I leaned back against him, molding my shape to his. Unlike that long time ago when I wished for Bill and got Eric instead, I knew who was here and I wanted just this, just him.

He seemed to feel the same because he kissed my neck and my hair and pressed his hand into my belly to pull me closer to him. I shook against him involuntarily and he steadied me against his mouth, his hand, his chest. I felt a ripple pass through me and it left me lightheaded and wanting more.

"My Sookie," he whispered and kissed my ear. "You are safe. You are... cared for."

Oh, baby. It's a miracle, I thought vaguely. A miracle. I thanked the baby Jesus a hundred times. I moaned. His hand on my belly started tracing small shapes there and then slowly, tantalizingly, moved lower. I wiggled against his fingers. I felt like I was rumbling, shaking against him from his hand. My nipples ached with need. I throbbed distinctly.

"Eric," I breathed, when I could breathe. "I want you inside. Please. Now."

He lifted my leg and rested it on the outside of his, opening me to him and ran a finger between my folds to check if I was ready. Boy, was I. I seemed to have melted and everything was seeping out from between my legs. I'd never been so ready. I made a strangled sound. His other arm reached and I found my head resting on his cool bicep as his hand found my breast and pulled lightly on the tip. Oh. Oh. He pulled me back against him slightly, angling me, and then he slid slowly, slowly, oh lord so slowly into me, inch by inch by... oh my... inch. And just like that I was a fish on a hook, undulating against him as he secured me to him. The pleasure bloomed and floated around my body, blossoming blush all over me.

"My lover," he growled and moved slowly and gently inside me. His other hand fluttered between my legs, teasing my nub and I called out. Loud, more loudly. Oh, Oh yes, please, pleaseplease. I started to shake violently, but it wasn't in passion. I didn't know what was happening, but something was rattling me from the inside out. I still felt the pleasure--the intense pleasure of his body possessing mine, keeping me safe in his arms--but it's like it flipped a trigger. All the other overwhelming feelings trapped inside me started leaking out when Eric was like this: So sweet and tender and sure and _hard_. I didn't want him to stop, Lord knew it, but I was quaking, crying. Loving it and mortified and enraged at my body's refusal to cooperate with anything that made me happy.

_He would leave. He would see that I was broken, that even the sex that had always been wonderful between us had been destroyed by my weak mind and out-of-control emotions._ I broke into a peeling sob. I covered my face to hide the tears, to hide myself. He would see that my pain had made me crazy and he would fly right out this window and into the dark night. The thought made me sob and thrash, but Eric held me tight to him.

"I'm sorry," I sobbed and put my hands on his to keep him there. "I'm sorry. Please. Please. Don't go." If he took himself away from me again, I didn't think I could stand it. I needed him. I needed him to be safe. I just knew that if I could keep him here, if he would stay with me, this would pass and I would be normal again, and the pleasure would come back. It was still there, his thickness giving me pleasure even while my brain and body convulsed.

And suddenly he was doing something that astonished me. He was moving into me again carefully, nibbling my ear and telling me I was safe, I was beautiful. He just said it like a mantra, over and over again while I sobbed and shook and rocked into him. The tears kept coming, but so did Eric, and eventually, my need for him won out. My bleary eyes cast about my bedroom to know this was true, that he was here, that I was awake. That he thought I was precious.

Precious.

He'd written it. I'd scoffed. But here he was holding me like I was delicate and irreplaceable. Just like that, I broke into a thousand pieces and everything I'd been holding together--not just since the fairy attack but since I found Eric running down the street terrified--fell apart right onto this bed with us. I sagged against the mattress and all the fight went straight out of me.

Eric gathered me up and those pieces, too, and was caressing me and comforting me and pleasuring me. "Dear one," he said. And, "_Mine_," with such tenderness it seemed to mean something else. I would have bristled but I didn't have it in me. Any man in his right mind would think twice about staying in the same bed with a woman who went from hot to trot to crazy, sobbing mess for no good reason. But this Eric, this new Eric, didn't seem disturbed at all. I momentarily worried about his sanity. But if I was going to be crazy and broken, he was the kind of crazy I wanted around.

_Oh good gracious,_ I thought with a sudden rush._ I wanted him around. I wanted to be with him. I _was_ with him. I was with him now. Oh my god, I wanted him now. Now!_

The pain ebbed--didn't vanish but was shoved forcefully aside by an urgency that took over my limbs. And suddenly I was clasping his neck to pull him up against me, bring his mouth and face to my neck. I pressed his hand into my breast harshly, wanting that, wanting him to massage me forcefully. I thrust my hips back into him and ground down. I think I might have growled.

Eric growled and I could feel it against my back, my neck, and I wanted more.

"Now," I grunted. "Eric, now."

_Fuck me like I'm yours,_ I wanted to say. But I'd never used those words with Eric before and I couldn't quite get them out of my mouth. I blushed at the thought but only for a second, because Eric was nothing if not prompt. I felt myself lifted and moved by his hips, filled and grabbed and held from the inside out.

"Ah," I grunted, gritted my teeth. "Ah. Yes. Sugar."

His fingers were pressed deeply onto me now, stroking hard and fast in time with his cock, and he was doing what I asked without me asking. Bless him. Bless every year of his thousand years and every sneaky thing he'd ever done to me if he was going to be here with me, taking me like this.

My hand found his hip and dug my nails in, pulling him to me, hard and fast. _Yes. More._

He cradled me back against him and pressed and pressed and I was reaching and I could feel him growing inside me and there was only one thing I wanted that he wasn't giving me now.

I took his hand from my breast and sucked a finger into my mouth, sucking it. He groaned into my neck. "Oh God, bite me baby," I said around his finger.

He thrust up into me hard when I said that and I about broke apart in a sweet, liquid way. His mouth was on me instantly, his fangs digging into my skin in the best pain, followed by sucking that had a direct line to what his hips were doing to me. Just then, my orgasm rocked me hard and I was melting into him, tensing every muscle and I bit into his finger. Hard. The thick gooeyness of his blood dripped into my mouth and I sucked greedily. Eric twitched and thrust into me deep one last time and released inside me noisily. It nearly sent me over the edge again, and when his fingers between my legs moved on me again, I did.

I thought it might go on like this forever, which I would not object to. He could drain me dry if this was what it felt like. But then I felt Eric's tongue on my neck.

"Ahh," I said. "Baby."

But what I thought was, _I love you. Oh, God, I love you._


	20. Chapter 20: Betrayal

**A/N: **First, I want to thank everyone for the amazing reviews and the touching PMs you all have sent over the past week after I shared about my breakup. I felt silly responding to each one, since it's so new and I don't really know even what to say yet. But I will say thank you so much. This is one of the gifts of the Internet. Kindness of strangers, indeed.

And to answer your questions: I feel weird. It's weird to go from talking to someone every day to not talking at all. To exchange stuff. It's like I've got all the stages of grief going all the time. So yeah. I'm a peach to be around right now.

The good news is you don't have to suffer any of that. You just get the chapter. I'm not as confident in this chapter as some of the others but I thought I just needed to get it out and move along. I could torture the poor story to death if I'm not careful. Anyway, I hope you like it regardless. Please do review and let me know what you think. What should Eric do to Bill?

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Disclaimer:** All characters are owned by Charlaine Harris. I just project stuff onto them.

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**Chapter 20: Betrayal**

**Sookie's POV**

I laid there in the dim light of the moon, holding Eric's slightly glowing hand, kissing his wrist like he liked to do me. For him, it was the allure of my blood. For me, it was just nice to do. _I love you,_ I thought with wonder as I kissed the knuckle of his thumb. I ran my lips over the meat of his palm.

_Lord save me, but I love you. _

Something tore inside me, a cold, dead warning to my system. But I couldn't help it, or I was too tired to fight it anymore. I didn't care which. Absently, I thought, _Stay with me forever. Stay. Stay. Don't ever leave._ I thought it like a prayer, and sent it to whatever God had sent him in the first place, who'd saved me by sending him, who kept him here.

I tried to hold back the tear, but one snuck out and I turned my head into the pillow to hide it. I prayed over and over again. _Keep him here. Don't let him go._ I know it's not right to pray for something for yourself, but I hoped God would understand and grant me just this one thing.

All the while, I kissed his hand, so limber in my grasp. I'd seen these hands wield a stake and a sword, attack and tear Weres limb from limb. I'd seen them gripped into tight fists.

They were strong. Powerful. They were lethal, and I wasn't about to kid myself about it. I didn't even want to think about what these hands had done when I wasn't around.

But... I closed my eyes and traced the topography of his hand with my mouth, savoring its patches of roughness and silkiness, licking his nails and kissing his knuckles. These fingers... These long, strong fingers were capable of soft and gentle strokes. They'd dug into me, curled and kept me on the edge. These hands held my back and kept me from falling. They'd picked me up off the ground when I was sure I was alone. I fought back more tears. They'd held my hand when I'd been scared and when he had, too. I clutched his hand to my chest, resting it above my heart and squeezed my eyes shut. _Please,_ I prayed. _Please._

I was surely lost now.

Eric kissed and nuzzled my neck where he'd bitten, making me shiver. My mind was so tired, my body blessedly spent and relaxed. For a moment, in my slowly drifting mind, that image of Bill slipped in front of my eyes and I was tempted to tear apart again. But I took a deep breath and fought it back and out of my mind, curling instead into the embrace of the man I was hoping... was becoming... my vampire. Well and truly.

I closed my eyes and listened to the dry whip of the wind through leafless trees, my own breathing and the sounds of Eric caressing my side soothingly.

After a few minutes, I drifted to sleep.

**Eric's POV**

"I love you," I murmured in old Norsk. "You are my miracle."

I watched as her cheek pressed in into my pillow and her sleeping hands pressed my hand to her chest. Surely this was a posture she had not shared with another. This moment was singular and I bent down to kiss the baby-fine hairs at her temple. She'd just spent an hour kissing and caressing and looking with such tenderness at nothing but my hand--my hand!--that I dared to think that perhaps she might finally surrender to me. Something warm burned in my ribcage, a feeling to which I was growing accustomed. I stroked my other hand down her ribs and up onto her hips, enjoying her natural dip and curve. A miracle, indeed.

"My Valkyrie."

And yet my little warrior was still so fragile, still healing. Just in the course of lovemaking, she'd succumbed to and fought her way through the panic. I kissed her hair, wishing I could do more, proud that she was gaining strength. She ejected that devil from herself tonight and chose me instead. My body tensed with need, my cock growing again.

_No_, I told myself. _Later_. First, she must sleep and I must finish my preparations for tomorrow.

But first, I would allow myself a small indulgence, something that I expected would not disturb her.

I reached to the sheet and pulled it down slightly, just exposing her right nipple. There was something about the nipple of a sleeping woman: Soft and relaxed in the pooled expanse of her voluptuous breast, the dusty rose of her areola just a shade darker than her pale skin, spanning out around it in a fleshy round. It rose and fell with her breath and I allowed myself the luxury of just watching the undulation. It was almost angelic, like the buttery soft skin of a woman in a painting, natural and beautiful. Sookie's breasts certainly were worthy of a painting.

The night air was working on her nipple, making it pucker and stiffen. I growled low enough not to wake her--just enough to release the tension building inside me. My cock grew hard remembering how she had moaned and whimpered when I had bit her there.

I leaned and, gentle as I could so as not to rouse her, placed my wet mouth around the puckered peak, swirling my tongue on it. I lowered my head further, burying my nose into the firm flesh of her breast, inhaling. No matter how old they got, human women's breasts always smelled of babies--a scent so divine that my fangs pressed hard against her skin and I had to be careful not to pierce her. No easy task. Combined with Sookie's unique elixir it was all I could do to keep myself from biting anew, making fresh marks to match those already healing. I ran my tongue over the puncture marks and forced myself to pull away.

If I did not rise from the bed now, I would be lost to her charms and I would wake her. I would be unable to stop. I would fuck her and exhaust her and I knew for her to heal fully--for us to have the life I desired--she must rest. I distracted myself with another thought. Tonight, she had been more genuinely adoring than anyone had treated me in at least two centuries.

This was not the adoration of a fangbanger--mindless and indiscriminate and desperate. This was gentle, affectionate. Affection, I thought with surprise. Though I had known much passion and pleasure in my long existence, simple affection was rarely afforded to my kind. Humans did not seek us out for affection, and I would sooner wrap myself in silver than express it in front of fellow vampires. No, no. That was a treasure saved for private moments. Moments such as these. Moments so rare that, over the years, I had almost lost the ability to recognize the emotion.

So it should have been no surprise that it had taken me so long to recognize the emotion in myself.

I listened to her breath and watched her blood pulse under the skin of her neck, where I had bitten not long ago.

Proof, I thought with satisfaction. Proof that she was mine.

I leaned back against the headboard and enjoyed the feel of my hand between her breasts, feeling her heart beating steadily and calmly. I closed my eyes and allowed it to lull me.

*******

I stalked down the hall, sniffing the air automatically, resenting that I must part from my Bonded, even for a short while. It was an odious task, this work, especially when the warm, welcoming body of my Bonded beckoned. Still, if I was to keep Sookie safe, I would have to attend my duties. I did not expect her to understand, but I expected it of myself all the more for her naivete.

Luckily for Compton, I found no further signs of him at the house this night. Speaking of. I flipped open my phone.

The voice on the other end was nearly as tired as a human's.

"Eric," he croaked out.

"I am waiting, Compton."

There was a long pause and I could hear him walking slowly through his dusty old house.

"You have 10 seconds to explain yourself before I start contemplating breaking your legs to impede your nightly stalking of my Bonded."

"She isn't yours, Eric, not yet."

I ran the very real risk of crushing my phone in my hand so I relaxed, realizing that Bill was no real threat--not after this night. Not after the light-tighting people and certainly not after Sookie's reaction to Bill's appearance earlier.

As bored as I could manage, I said, "Tick tock, Bill."

He sighed--one of those tired human affectations that made me want to make him finally, irrevocably dead.

"I apologize, sheriff, for disobeying your orders."

The strain in his voice was a small victory.

I smiled cruelly.

"I'm sorry, I didn't hear that."

Compton laughed a dry, frustrated laugh. He would be more frustrated when I cut his feet off so he could approach my Bonded no longer.

"What do you want, Eric?"

I laughed at his impudence and my ability to unnerve him.

"Oh, Bill," I started, drawing out his name. "I already have what I want--everything I want, every way I want it." I listened quickly to Sookie's steady low breathing and lowered my voice just to be sure. "Do you need me to fuck her in front of you for you to accept it?"

I laughed at his aggrieved growl. I had forgotten how much I enjoyed taunting this baby vampire.

"Growl all you like, Bill," I said, leaning back on the couch and draping one long arm across its back. "Is that what you did earlier, Bill--growled? Is that what caused my Bonded so much pain?"

I waited and heard Bill take in a labored, unnecessary breath.

"Oh, Bill," I said, shaking my head. "Your false humanity and pity-illness do nothing for me." I looked down at my nails, running my fingers under my nose and inhaling Sookie's delicious scent. "I know my Bonded thinks it's somehow romantic that you were slow enough with your sword to allow yourself to be attacked by a fucking _fairy_, but to me it's only proof that you are unlikely to see your 200th year. Especially if you keep disobeying your sheriff's orders.

"Now. To the point. You are required to take a walk every night, are you not?"

He coughed. "Yes."

"Before you begin your walk tomorrow night, you will wait for me to arrive. I will be there soon after first dark. When I leave, you will walk in the opposite direction as Sookie's house. You will not round back. You will not check on her. You will stay away from her until I give you permission to approach. This is a direct order from your sheriff. Is that understood?"

I heard swallowing and the beginning of a growl. I clenched my jaw. Breaking his legs might be a very good idea, indeed. "Yes."

"Very well." I snapped the phone shut and raised my eyebrow at the now silent device.

I made a few more calls in quick succession: To the aide Bonita, to my day man and, finally, the simplest task. I flipped the phone open once more.

"Mr. Mitchell, you will not come to my home today. You will wait for Sookie to call you to complete the work. I will keep you on retainer for future repairs to the house, if you are able to please my... wife."

I ended the call and smiled. Mrs. Northman. I glanced down the hall and into the darkened room. My wife. I fairly growled with satisfaction. She was mine and she would be mine.

With that done, I attended to the last of the inventory report and checked with Pam on the progress of the books, ordering a check to be cut as this quarter's tribute to de Castro. A month early should certainly keep me in good stead.

By the time I closed my computer's lid, it was 1 a.m.--still early for me, but I wondered at the wisdom of waking my Bonded. And how to inform her of my impending work obligation? Suddenly, I was filled with a possessiveness that made my hand press onto my laptop so hard that I feared I had destroyed another one. My body... My body remembered the ghost of her hands clutching my ribs, pulling me close to her, desperate, unseeing. My body tensed and sang with her urgency and a pressure built in my chest.

_Just hold on to me now. Tighter. Don't let me go._

My hands tensed with the need to hold her again, cursing the loss of the bond and my obligation as sheriff. It was a worthless emotion, regret. I would do what I had to to keep her safe, even if she misunderstood. Even if she cursed my name. At least she would not rescind my invitation this night.

Ah but the bond. If the bond were functional, I would know her mood. I would know the best way to approach her, to convince her that dealing with my masters brought us one step closer to freedom.

I packed up my work supplies and moved them back to the guest quarters when I heard my Bonded's stomach rumble loudly. Suddenly I was reminded of the aide Bonita's note: Sookie had had but one meal this day and after the excitement and our passion earlier, she surely needed sustenance. This I could provide.

**Sookie's POV**

I was exhausted but hungry won out. By the time I opened my eyes the most delicious smell was wafting its way into my nose. I turned toward it and finally opened my eyes. I let out an involuntary laugh.

In front of me was the most delicious thing I'd seen in a while: Eric, naked and clothed in only his soft white robe, kneeling one knee on the bed, his hand outstretched with a plate of food. He looked for all the world like his Fangtasia poster. Mr. January was here--and he came bearing meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans. Bless Bonnie and Bless Eric.

When he saw me looking, I swear he preened a little. (That's a word of the day from way back when, but boy did it describe Eric.) He settled on the bed, that arrogant smirk on his beautiful face.

"Here," he said quietly, holding a fork up to my mouth as if I were a baby. "You must eat."

With that, he nudged a scoop of potatoes into my mouth. I turned to sit up. It wasn't proper to eat in bed. Gran would kill me if she saw me doing it now, and I'd made a habit of it a lot lately. Eric feeding me like a baby got my hackles up, and I struggled to sit up in bed, to take the fork. But Eric was too fast and kept taking it from me. I was irritable from exhaustion, from how busy the night had been, from seeing Bill. Oh, Lord. Bill.

I sighed and Eric took it as a chance to shove food in my mouth.

I was just waking, and that's the excuse I gave myself for allowing Eric to feed me most of my dinner. I sat, feeling for all the world like a child with my arms crossed in front of me and my eyes trained on the quilt, not looking at Eric as he scooped mouthful after mouthful of creamy, comforting and salty food into my mouth. It lay in my stomach and warmed me. If I closed my eyes a little and savored it, it was just because I was so hungry.

But eating reminded me of why my stomach had been so empty to begin with. I fought my rage at Eric inviting those clods into my house without regard to how it might hurt me. Maybe he didn't know me at all. Maybe I didn't know him.

Maybe this was all an act. My stomach twisted violently and I thought I might be sick again.

I straightened my back and took the plate from one of Eric's hands, the fork from the other. I set about methodically finishing off the rest of the plate, not looking at Eric. I had to think. Between the floor work and Bill's appearance, I realized I was far from certain. My body seemed to be sure. Heck, my heart seemed decided--though that could be chalked up to sex haze as far as I was concerned.

But there was something--deep doubt. Between what Bill had done to me and what Eric was doing, without regard to my feelings, I had a sudden panic: What if... Oh Lord, what if he cared as little about me as it turned out Bill had?

I so did not want to ask this. I wasn't sure my weary body could take the stress of it.

But I'd been through much more stressful situations. So I plowed on ahead. I curled against him but crossed my arms over my chest, turning myself into a little ball almost on Eric's big old lap. Some small voice screamed at me to stop, but I was agitated. Uncomfortable. I felt like june bugs were hopping all over my skin. I looked up at him and Eric was studying me carefully.

"Tell me," he said quietly but forcefully, moving the plate to the side table. His eyes were soft but his jaw was set and flexing. His hand soothed down my side, landing on my hip before starting up again the way it came.

I huffed and looked away. But I needed to ask him.

"I need you to tell me everything, Eric," I said, too softly for my own liking.

He pulled back from me and looked at me inquisitively. I put my hand on his cheek, painfully aware of the ripping happening in my chest. I might not ever be able to hold him to me like this again after I knew the truth. But I had to know. I wouldn't go through that, whatever that was with Bill, ever again--not if I could help it.

I looked in his eyes and forbade myself to cry.

"I need to know when you found out about me. I need to know when you found out that Bill was using me by the queen's orders." My voice cracked and faltered. I closed my eyes again and through gritted teeth said, "I need to know which of the things you've done for me you did because it was your duty as sheriff and which you did because you wanted to."

I ground my teeth for a second, so mad at myself for ruining the moment, mad at Bill for making me doubt everything, mad at Eric for being so manipulative and high-handed. All that contentment and well-being flew right out of me, and nauseous fear replaced it. My body hummed with regret and preemptive anger. But I was no longer the country girl who'd never dated anyone. I wasn't naive to the world of vampires. And I wasn't going to be Eric's fool the way I was Bill's.

I girded myself and opened my eyes, leveling them with Eric's, whose expression had gone blank. My heart sank. This was not a good sign.

But I refused to waver. I refused to give in to the tears that were threatening at the corner of my eyes.

Eric sat up and I repositioned myself so I could look at him. It hurt too much to touch him right now, knowing what I might find out. Instinctively I crossed my arms in front of myself.

Eric looked back at me for a long minute, watching whatever minute changes to my bearing or demeanor I was giving off. I was pretty good at hiding my feelings in general, but tonight I guessed I was off my game. I blame the torture and the general state of my nerves these days. Seemed I couldn't get through a day without a crying spell. I hoped that would quit when I could finally leave the house again.

I nodded, hoping that would encourage him to start.

He narrowed his gaze at me but then said without emotion, "You do not trust me."

It was an accusation and we both knew it. "Can you blame me, Eric, after all I've been through?" _With Bill? With you? With the queen?_ It seemed like there wasn't a vampire I could trust aside from maybe Bubba or Pam.

I moved away from the bed and started pacing restlessly, arms over my chest. Eric looked at me like I was lunch and I realized I was still naked. "Focus, please, Eric," I hissed. "Look, I don't want to ask this any more than you want to tell me. But I can't keep doing whatever it is we're doing here if I don't know."

My throat hurt from the crying I did earlier and I absently ran my hand up to my throat to soothe it. I felt a slight tremor passed through me, but I paid it no mind. I had to know.

"Sookie," he started softly, his eyes suddenly 1,000 years old again. It always disoriented me when he did that and I found myself lost in their ancient depths. I thought of all the injuries he'd suffered, all the loss he'd had to bear. I shook myself. No. I had to know. I pulled back and watched him, waited for him to continue. I walked to where my robe had landed on the floor and pulled it on.

He studied my movements for a minute and started.

"I told you I would always be honest with you, but you may not like it," he started. "The first I'd heard of you was when you walked into my bar that night with Compton." His voice was bored and contemptuous, like he was reciting a lesson for school.

"I could smell that you were a virgin, Sookie. Did you know that?" I was horrified, and felt myself turn bright red. This is not what I'd meant when I said I wanted him to tell me everything. He was looking far off and dreamy, kind of the way Pam did when a fairy was near. It creeped me out a little. But then his next words confused me. "You weren't like anything I'd seen in centuries, walking into that bar so innocent and determined, and I could tell your relationship with Compton wasn't set. I wanted you."

He flicked his gaze directly into my eyes and his were as hungry and determined as I remembered them from that first night. Still, that wasn't news. But I was relieved at least that he was telling me that he hadn't been in cahoots with Bill and the queen from the beginning. I wasn't sure I believed it, but it was what I wanted to hear.

Then he paused, a tremor of something tender passing through his eyes before they went blank again.

"What you must understand, Sookie, is that once I became aware of your gifts, I was obliged to inform the queen about you. I file quarterly reports to my masters, listing all assets and liabilities, and after I met you and learned of your skills--and then saw you use them yourself during the embezzlement investigation at my bar--I was required to place you on that list and update the queen on your movements and any time we hired you out."

He looked down and watched my hand move on my sore throat. The gaze was somehow sensuous and I gulped despite myself. I nodded. I knew this was the case, even though it made me uneasy to be considered an object they could do with as they pleased. The nausea returned but I held my ground.

"When Stan requested your services, I was required to inform the queen that we'd hired you out, and she asked me to follow after and insure that you were safe. She apparently trusted Compton's ability to keep you safe as little as I did."

He sneered this, but I was too lost in the implications. I didn't know what I'd expected--maybe that he'd fallen in love with me the first night and then followed me around like a lovesick puppy dog ever since. But learning the truth, that he was under orders to protect me, made his jumping in front of that first bullet seem all the shallower. I swallowed deep and sucked in the air to keep from crying. I turned and looked out the window. I couldn't bear for him to see my face.

The look in his eyes begged me to understand and I wanted to scoff. Stupid vampire politics. Stupid old-fashioned ideas about women and possessions.

Stupid hope.

Eric was speaking slowly and carefully, as if trying to compose each sentence precisely. He waited till I turned back to him. When I did, Eric's eyes looked sad and scared, and I felt my whole body go on alarm.

"Sookie," he said my name like a caress, and I struggled against the well of emotions it stirred in me. I couldn't afford it right now. I gritted my teeth and looked away again.

"So the bullet you took in Dallas. And cleaning out my wound after I escaped from the Fellowship," I said, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. "That was at the queen's orders." I said it almost numbly, fighting back the deep void that was edging around my consciousness. "I was just a chick you wanted to fuck and you were ordered to keep me alive."

I flicked a look up at him and he flinched a millimeter--a big reaction for Eric.

"Sookie, you are much more than a 'chick' I was required to protect," he said, with enough venom in his voice to choke a horse. His nostrils flared and I could see he took umbrage with my hurt, which seemed way out of line to me. "I could have turned you, Sookie. Do you realize that? I could have allowed the bullet to take you an then turn you and control you as your Maker."

I was staring at him. He wouldn't dare! I ran over to him and punched his chest, which did more harm to me than him. He just looked at me with bored eyes and held me away from him so I couldn't, I don't know, irritate him any more.

"Sookie, listen to me," he said, trying to remain calm. "_You_ asked me to come to the orgy, and I did it. I did not tell the queen of that. The queen knew nothing of the Jackson trip. The queen knew nothing of me healing you after you were staked."

"No kidding!" I snapped, getting more irritable, the impulse to run burning up my back. But run where? I couldn't leave the house. I suddenly felt trapped by my phobia, and convinced that I might just bust out of it all together tonight to get away from all this. "Your butt was in a sling! You needed my help. You used my..." and here I shook my head, willing myself toward anger and away from self-pity, "my love for Bill to manipulate me into doing something incredibly dangerous just to save Bill's precious database."

I'd been pacing all this time and then a sickening thought occurred to me. I did something that would probably get almost anyone else drained on the spot. I reached up and grabbed his jaw, pulling his face down so he could look me in the eye.

"And all that time... Did you know? Did you know by then that Bill had orders to bring me to the queen by any means necessary? Is that what you were trying to tell me when you were hemming and hawing about why I should go to Jackson in the first place? That's it, isn't it? That's why you wouldn't complete your sentence when you said that Bill was coming back to make arrangements for me: Arrangements to bring me to the queen."

I felt the floor rise up to meet me, but before I could completely collapse, Eric had pulled me to him and laid me on the bed. I felt like I'd never be whole again, that the foundation under my feet would always shift out from under me, that those I put the most faith in would always betray me and leave me. And despite all this, I found I didn't have the energy to even struggle against Eric's grip. I just stared up at the ceiling, wondering how I would ever get by. Wondering if I wanted to. Wondering if it might not be better for everyone if I just... disappeared.

"Quiet now," he said, holding me down with more force than was strictly necessary. "You've had a shock this night. You are exhausted. Bill did something--upset you."

My head was foggy, it was true. But it was clouded with realization. I started shaking my head, feebly raising my arms up to get him off of me, get as far away from any vampire as I could.

"N-no," I rasped, feeling myself edging towards collapse. "Tell me. I want to hear you tell me."

"Breathe, Sookie," he said grimly.

I clenched my jaw. Who was he... I took in a shallow breath and then another, and felt myself on the edge of hyperventilating. He just held my gaze and pantomimed breathing for me. I couldn't help it. I couldn't look away. I started breathing in time with the rise and fall of his dead chest. I started shaking.

"Eric," I whispered. "Tell me. I need to know. If that's the case, I just... I can't get in any deeper with you. Please."

Damn him for making me beg for facts.

Finally he said, "Fine. No." He looked at me and his fangs were half down. I shivered uncontrollably and would be happy when that habit went away. "I told you the queen had informed me that Bill was working on a secret project. She did not tell me the nature of the project, that it wasn't just the database--that you were part of it, too."

The look in his eyes told me it was true. But I felt all tied up in knots. More. I needed to know more. "And if you'd known? What would you have done? Would you have bundled me off to the royal residence with a big bow on my butt? Would you have asked for a finder's fee?"

I knew it probably wasn't fair but I hurt like hell. Everything I thought was real kept leaving me. I wasn't going to miss anything, not this time. I wouldn't allow him to lie to me by omission.

But at that, Eric sat up straight and moved away from me. Now his eyes went blank, his whole face a mask of disinterest. But his hard eyes never left mine.

I just lay there looking up at him, wishing I could apologize and wishing that I'd never been hurt. I moved away from him on the bed but didn't get back up. I couldn't say why. So I was surprised when he's the one who got up and walked across the room.

"That's irrelevant," he growled over his shoulder at me. I knew what that meant. Of course he would have. He'd do anything to save his own hide, even kidnap a telepathic barmaid and ship her off to a bunch of mean and strange vampires. I shook all the harder.

Just the thought of being alone with Andre... I shivered.

He moved out into the hall. He was so silent I didn't know where he'd gone until I heard the microwave beep. A minute later he was back, filling the door frame with a big mass of angry vampire, clutching a bottle of TrueBlood. He crossed his big arms in front of himself and cocked his head to the side casually. "I'll not play these 'what if' games with you, Sookie."

"Why not?" I asked, taking on his same pose. My heart was tearing something awful and I'd almost rather feel nothing than this. In a smaller voice than I'd like, I said, "Seems to me if the answer were no, you'd just say it."

"It's irrelevant, _Sookie_," and he said my name like he was tired of answering a particularly slow child's questions, "because it's all changed."

He took a swig of his blood as if to make a point.

His eyes bore into me and I felt caught and naked and fragile. Just like that, the fight flew out of me, making my fingertips tingle. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of the silence of my old farmhouse, and that it was just the two of us in it, as it had been for a week. I looked at him leaning there, and remembered a time he was here when he was weak as I felt just now. And I remembered how strong he'd been this week. How he'd nursed me and talked to me and made love to me and answered my questions. And he'd picked me up when I'd fallen down.

Change. Had it all changed? Something was changing in me and I felt out of control. For someone who had control over whether she'd live or die taken from her, the feeling was almost unbearable. I looked up into his eyes and they were a touch softer, a touch rounder, and just intense enough to remind me of the time when everything had changed for me. A cold burning ignited in my chest and my throat felt every bit as raw and raspy as it was. I couldn't tear my eyes from his and as the seconds passed on, his eyes grew ever softer. I seemed to be losing control of my body now, too. I was shaking violently, crying dry tears.

"Oh."

"Yeah. _Oh_," he said, but more softly now. I heard the hollow sound of glass on wood and then Eric was in front of me, gathering me in his arms and returning us to the bed. Despite myself, I curled into him, my confused mind spinning. Eric was holding me tight against him, as if I would fly away at any second. It was funny because just then I felt like my muscles wouldn't work if Breandan himself showed up at my door. I nibbled at the nail of my thumb and leaned my cheek against his chest, waiting for everything I knew to settle into its new pattern.

"So when you stopped yourself from telling me what Bill wanted to do...?"

Eric huffed an unnecessary sigh--ever the drama queen--but I was so overwrought I could barely note it. "He told me he wanted to come back and make financial arrangements for your future, to make sure you never wanted for anything." His fingertips traced one thigh, making me lose a little of my focus. "And he wanted to make sure I would keep you under my protection. He wanted to make sure I prevented anyone from taking you away from your home."

I couldn't make my lungs work. My teeth stopped chewing my nail. Bill was going against his queen? And what about Eric? Would he put himself at risk for my sake? I was sure I knew the answer to that one.

"Did you agree?" I managed to eek out, when I found my breath again.

He pulled me up to nuzzle against my ear, tickling me. "Of course," he murmured, causing my insides to begin a slow melt. His fingers moved the edge of my robe aside to trace a little higher. "I had not had you yet. I was unwilling to surrender you quite so easily."

I laughed despite myself. I guess the fact that he was a horny vampire had worked in my favor. I turned to look at him, afraid of what I'd see in his eyes, and it was there: That quiet, intense, smoldering look he gave me the first night I walked into Fangtasia, but now with a glint of longing in his ancient eyes. I found it in me to smile, just a little. I pressed myself into him.

"And now that you've _had me_?" I said, imitating his self-important tone. It slipped out before I could stop myself. I cursed myself. I didn't want to have this conversation. Not now, maybe not ever.

"Now? Oh, my lover. Now you are _mine_," he growled into my ear and then grazed his fangs down my neck, which made the slow melt speed up.

"Oh." His fingers were tickling the inside of one thigh now. A thrill of pure pleasure shot through me.

I was just about to roll on my back and tell him, "Take me, you big Viking," but I struggled back to consciousness for one more question.

"Wait!" I panted. "So when did you find out?"

He took a deep breath in of my scent and then looked at me, aggravated.

"Fine. After the debacle in Jackson, both Bill and I were called to New Orleans--Bill for his late project, me for having allowed him to be stolen away," Eric said it slowly and nausea rose in my throat again. I felt myself go rigid. He'd known that long and not told me? "That is when the true nature of Bill's project was revealed to me."

He stopped. I knew there was more to the story--probably a lot of vampire politicking, and I wasn't sure I wanted those details. I stuck to what was pertinent. I could hardly restrain the pain in my voice. How could I trust a vampire who kept something so important from me?

"What?" I asked, my voice shaky. "Wh--Why? Why didn't you tell me then, when you got back?"

I moved to pull back from him but he held me captive in his arms and I hated myself for needing them even as I could sense the pain he could cause me with his next words.

He turned and looked at me, irritation flashing in his face. He wasn't used to having to explain himself to anyone, let alone a lowly human. But he relented anyway. He was being downright rambling by vampire standards.

"I saw no reason to upset you further," His eyes had softened considerably and he rubbed one calloused thumb over my cheek. I looked at him suspiciously. He leaned his head back against the headboard and pulled me against his chest again and closed his eyes. "And then I was cursed... And then you were with the tiger... I saw no reason to tell you until I saw that Bill was attempting to win you back."

I looked out the dark window and nodded. A fuzzy memory floated back, of Eric looking irritated and bothered as I'd ever seen a vampire look outside of feeding time or battle. Of him saying that he hadn't even wanted to tell me that Lorena had called Bill and that Bill was leaving me--he hadn't wanted to be the one who caused me pain. It'd be just like him to allow Bill to be the bad guy and then want to sweep in and be the vampire in shining armor.

A wave of exhaustion washed over me. My bones rattled with sobs I wasn't even aware I was making, and Eric's hand went to my back in a now-familiar, soothing gesture. I couldn't say what I wanted at that moment, but what I needed was to stay here. I tried to stay mad, to push Eric away, but my body rebelled. It sagged against Eric's chest and filled, despite my pride, with contentment and safety.

I.. I didn't know if that made it all better. I didn't know if I could ever truly trust a vampire again. But Eric being there, holding me, seemed to mean something. I'd figure out what later. But for now, I felt the fight drain out of me and myself slump against Eric, allowing his big hand to work out the kinks in my back and lull me. I closed my eyes for an instant, listening just to my own breath.

**Eric's POV**

I closed my eyes and tried to rein in my bloodlust. I should kill her for questioning me like this. That I should need her approval. That this _infant_ should question my handling of politics more ancient than she could imagine... That she should seek to tell me how to handle the vampires I have worked with with centuries. I wanted to rip her throat out to stop her from asking another question.

"Happy now?" I muttered, feeling her slack and mold herself against me. Insolent child. Perhaps she is not yet prepared for me. Perhaps I should give her what she wants--her much vaunted freedom--and come for her in 10 years. Perhaps by then she might have a better sense of how the world works--of how my world works in particular. Perhaps I should offer her up to the king and see how she enjoys being de Castro's plaything and unpaid servant. Perhaps then she would respect my judgment and understand that what I do is for her as much as for me.

I wanted to growl. I wanted to show her what her alternate life might look like if I hadn't saved her from Compton and the queen and even the tiger. She had no idea how unsafe she really was. That innocence of youth. That invulnerability. It is only a liability in my world. It was amazing she had lived even these past few years in my world. I laughed bitterly to myself. Indeed, had I not been there, she would have been dead many times over.

And yet she was still fighting me. Still questioning me. Still testing my resolve and my morals and my feelings for her. Enough. Enough of this.

I heard a small squeak and looked down at the stubborn, immature woman I had bonded myself to. Perhaps I was foolish. Indeed, I know myself to have lost my head over this human. I have risked myself for her. I have given her everything. I would give her more if she would allow it.

Perhaps I shouldn't try so hard with her. Let her make mistakes and come to me.

I reached and I took a disgruntled swig of the bottled, synthetic dreck.

Sookie didn't respond. Not a muscle twitch, not a murmur. I looked down and she'd gone completely limp, breathing evenly against my chest. This night had been too much for her.

I laid and watched her. So innocent when she is sleeping. You would not know the fire inside her, the anger, or the passion. Nor how valuable she had become to me. My muscles tensed with the friction: So valuable and so unreasonable.

I thought back to that first bullet in Dallas. I remembered seeing that gun fire at Stan's house, and feeling my body fly up to cover the obstinate human who had rejected me numerous times already. I remembered the sting and burn as the bullet pierced my skin. My body tensed with remembered rage. I had been so angry--with the foolish human who thought he could come into Stan's nest and live to tell about it, about this human who had denied me, about my own impulse to protect her despite her rejection. I could have turned her. I could have required sex of her. I could have made her heel deliciously.

Why I did not want that had irritated me then and had only begun to make sense to me after I regained my memories.

At the time, I had distracted myself from those cursed feelings with a small deception, needing to feel her hot lips on my body, feel my blood enter her veins. It was everything I had imagined. The way her lips lingered on me, the way every tug of her sucking mouth traveled right to my growing erection. I had not had to fight for a human in centuries. I had grown lazy with the fangbangers who offered themselves to me. I was unused to having to exert effort to bed one or feed on one. And here was this one, so beautiful and strong and unlike any human I'd met in centuries, and she would not yield. That I had had to resort to deceit to get her lips on me aggrieved me. But to feel her lips on me was a reward greater than a thousand virgins.

And so, I realized with growing frustration, I would continue to allow her to fight with me, to question me. Because for some reason, I was weary of a world where all yielded, perhaps. Or because the passion that made her obstinate also made her an unrivaled lover. That the way her mind worked confounded and seduced me. That she was brave when she ought not. That she was loyal. That she had, after all, taken me in and cared for me when others of my kind and her kind would have sliced me and drained me, used me. She offered only comfort. Because, I supposed if I were honest, her capacity for kindness and love was as powerful as her pigheadedness.

I listened to her breathing, relished her heat and let my mind go.

*******

It was nearly dawn when Sookie stirred, her head tensing and turning, resting on my ribs in a new angle. Her movement startled me out of my relaxation. I had been enjoying the sounds of foraging animals in the woods beyond her house, the lulling rush of the occasional car down the frontage road. I gingerly lifted one small, warm hand from its resting spot on my chest. I brought it to my nose, appreciating a moment when I could adore her without suspicion and without her weary gaze. I would be glad when her therapy began to work on her and she no longer felt the need to question me, when she would be free of suffering and available to begin our lives together.

I absently rubbed her warmth against my cheek, my eyelids, my lips, my nose. I wallowed in it, absorbing it. Intoxicated by her scent and warmth, I licked and nibbled at her hand, her wrist, at every finger. Ah, gods, a flash of the other night, of her small fingers parting my lips, toying with my fangs and finally, ugh, gods, pressing her delicate finger to the tip and rubbing the sweetness of her blood on my tongue. My gums ached with how extended my fangs had become and I had to restrain myself from nicking her fingers now, just to get a little taste.

She sighed and sounded almost happy, but she did not open her eyes.

"Bless... Eric," she half-slurred, and I wasn't entirely sure she wasn't still dreaming. Her hand at my waistband flopped against me helplessly and made me smile. Was she attempting to comfort me? This fragile human woman? In her sleep?

I leaned and brushed my lips against her golden hair. "For what, dear one?"

"You... me," she mumbled and burrowed my face into me further. I could not make out the word in the middle, even with my excellent hearing. "Thank y..."

I looked at her surprised. She was not angry at me now after her explosion earlier? I raised an eyebrow. Life with her would never be dull.

She stilled for a second, the only sound her heavy breathing. Then she gave my torso a feeble squeeze. Yes, not entirely sure she wasn't dreaming.

"Baby," she breathed, her breath playing against my torso. "Love you."

**Sookie's POV**

When I woke, I was pinned. I panicked momentarily but before it could bloom fully, I felt a soft tingling on my left breast. Then a tickle. Then a fluttering of excitement much lower. My breath caught and I coughed a little.

I opened my eyes to find Eric's big hands on my breasts, gently playing with my nipples. A very heavy Viking was pressed against my lower body and his face was buried in my belly.

"Ah," I moaned, and Eric's eyes snapped to mine. His fangs were doing indescribable things to the sensitive flesh of my lower belly. Just tickling and teasing, not biting--just the thought of a bite on my just healed flesh of my lower belly cooled my fire a bit.

But then I couldn't think of that because Eric was looking at me with that tender gaze of his--that look that for all the world I would never have believed this Eric capable. I was just awake enough to lift a heavy hand to his face, running a finger along his cheekbone. When I reached his mouth, running my fingers along his lower lip, he parted them and showed me his fangs. For anyone else, it might have sent a cold chill through them. But to me, it set my body to throbbing. I ran a finger along one and then the other of his fangs, and I felt Eric rumble in pleasure, the vibration hitting me lower still.

I gasped and pressed the fleshy pad of my finger against one sharp tip. I felt it prick and turned it in his mouth. He held my gaze as he sucked on my finger, tugging the blood from me and I felt the suction in my lady bits. I could feel myself flush and my nipples become harder under his hand. I let out a barely audible squeak and I could see Eric smirk around my hand. I couldn't care. I couldn't think of anything but what he was doing to me, but for the fact that this gorgeous, ancient being was in my bed.

"Kiss me," I murmured.

I meant my lips but Eric took it to mean something else, and lickety-split, he was lowered between my legs and my thighs were on his shoulders.

"Ah, God," I groaned in delight. His movement was so swift that I threw my head back and bowed my back into him, offering him all of me. My hands went up behind my head to grasp at my pillows, at anything. I shivered and those beautiful hands ran under my butt to hold me up.

"Watch me." I couldn't want anything else at that moment.

The look of lust and fierceness in his eyes mesmerized me. He knew exactly what he was doing. He pressed his nose into my swollen nub and made me jump. Then he started long, slow licks with the flat of his tongue. I bit my lip and groaned.

He moved slowly. He was in no hurry. And something about this time--it wasn't playful. It was reverent like the first night he arrived, and so lustful that it bordered on viciousness. He was holding my hips like he owned me, and while normally I'd bristle at that, I had to admit that a man who knew what he was doing in bed was always an exciting thing.

He said something in his ancient language, punctuated by my name and I moaned. He licked and tickled me teasingly, but avoided the straining nub that demanded his attention. I was in that heady place between just waking up and veering off into a very, very good moment, so words escaped me. I just tried to rock my hips into him and sobbed. But he wouldn't have it, he held my hips still and gave me a warning look. I threw my head back in frustration and stared at the ceiling for a third time tonight. Then suddenly, he pressed the long length of his tongue inside me, searching and sucking. I tried to move away from the sudden attack, but I couldn't. He just held me there and murmured into my flesh, making me shiver, forcing me to feel the excitement and shock of it. He pulled me onto his tongue over and over. He spoke again, but I couldn't understand him.

I finally looked down to find him nuzzling and nibbling my thighs and I was so on fire I was surprised flames weren't licking out from my lady bits. I groaned again in frustration but Eric's eyes smiled and if I could make out his lips, I knew he'd be smirking.

He looked up at her with that mischievous look on his face and said, "Patience, lover." When he sucked one of my lips into his mouth, I used my whole body weight to grind down onto him.

"Eric," I grunted, not recognizing my voice. "I... Oh, Lordy... I'm clean... Ughn... clean out of patience. _Please_."

Then I wanted to punch him for the look he gave, triumphant and in charge and superior. What I wouldn't give to wipe that expression off his face.... Oh, but then I couldn't think. He pulled me to him tightly, growling, and the vibration did something... Oh. Yes.

"P... Please," I managed to rasp.

I was coming undone. I was floating on the edge. I was mesmerized by his eyes. And, apparently, I didn't know what I was doing with my hands because they went from tangling in frustration into my hair to pawing roughly at my own breasts. I just needed... Just a little more. Please.

I let out a strangled, desperate sound and felt strength flow into me as I began to feel filled. Ah, God. Eric must have... I looked down and Eric had rearranged himself and slipped one of those gorgeous long fingers into me. I began to shake and pulled at my nipples absently.

"Baby," I managed. "Oh, Eric."

He growled in response and I noticed his eyes had alighted on my hands. I would have smiled if I hadn't been half out of my mind with lust. I watched his eyes dilate and tugged on my nipples, massaging my breasts, sobbing in need. His fingers moved faster inside me and I gyrated needfully toward his mouth.

"Ah. Feels so... Oh, Eric!" I knew I was half out of my mind but I couldn't do anything else, and wouldn't want to be anywhere else.

And just like that he was kissing me. He was lavishing my little nub with 1,000 years of kissing and caressing techniques and he was shoving me over the edge and into the sweetest oblivion. I swear I howled.

But instead of growling, Eric just held my eyes, and bore into my brain--not literally but he'd still captured me. He held me. He held more than my hips or my sex or even my eyes. He held me and a little piece of me slid into place and was safe.

I wanted to cry with relief, but I couldn't bring myself to it. I was wiped out. Exhausted. I needed Eric, and I desperately needed sleep. It felt like the longest night of my life.

I started drifting, but then I felt Eric shift and suddenly his mouth was on mine and he pressed his hard tip against me. The eyed me like he was desperate, like he, too, might come undone.

"Lover, ahh," he groaned and in one swift move, he filled me. A flame so hot shot up my back I thought I might be made of cinders by the time we were done. I shook in exhaustion and couldn't even move my legs up his hips. He just grabbed them and pulled me and tilted me so he had me the way he wanted--the way he knew, somehow, would undo me--and he bore down on me, holding my lips, capturing my gaze and not letting go.

"Lover," he groaned. "Say it."

He was eyeing me in a way that I didn't understand. He looked like he wanted to eat me whole, like he needed something from me. I didn't know what else I could give him.

In one, two, three thrusts, he ground down against me, finally hitting my little nub just right and it was like igniting gunpowder. My whole body went off, incinerating from my contracted toes to my hairline. There were no colors, just this. Just him. Just... Oh god, I loved him. I loved him. Please. I loved him.

"S--Sookie," he moaned. "Say it."

I shivered and shook and could feel wetness on my cheeks. I reached up and started caressing his face, kissing him desperately. His kisses back were strong and hard and stole my breath every time I could gasp a little bit of air.

I pulled his neck toward me and rested his forehead on mine, but he wasn't done with me. I thought he might break me, with how wild he'd become.

"Baby," I cooed, trying to help him along. I stifled a yawn, and then moaned as he started hitting the spot again. "Oh, baby. Please. I can't take any more. I... I.. Oh. Oh. Oooh Eric...." I bowed my back and he bit into my breast, sucking hard, sending me over again.

"Oh baby. Ah... I love it when you do that," I sighed when I could.

The look in his eyes was almost frightened now. "P-please. Sookie. Say it."

I was so tired now I could hardly hold my eyes open. But I forced them open to look at him, confused. There was that longing again, that need. That big lust. And something bigger. It would have scared me but I was too tired.

"Oh Eric," I sighed. "Please. Whatever it is, just tell me and I'll say it."

His mouth came crashing down on mine and I felt his fangs nearly stab my bottom lip. But then he groaned and shook and I knew he'd found his release. I continued to kiss him as aftershocks took him and cooed into his ear sleepily. I brushed his hair back from his face and tucked it behind his ear.

His hands left my hips and wrapped me up tightly, holding me to him and I hummed in contentment.

"Mmmm," I sighed. "My baby." I kissed his ear, and I could feel myself begin to drift to sleep.

"Why can you not say it? When will you yield?"

As I fell into unconsciousness, Eric whispered it and I just caught it. With the last of my energy, I wrinkled my brow. What? What was he talking about?

But then I couldn't think and sleep took me under.


	21. Chapter 21: The Promise

**A/N:** I know, can you believe it!? Finally… An update. Just like Eric with Sookie, I wouldn't anbandon you guys. I want to thank everyone who sent me PMs in the last month and a half, encouraging me to continue with the story. There were a few times I thought about giving it up. But I I hated the idea of leaving the story hanging. Plus, now that I'm out of my relationship, I want to see these two get better and be happy together. It's the least they can do.

In the interim, a mini-celebration: The good folks over at Bill's Wiki'd Women held a vampwich fan fic contest, Make Love Not War. I entered a story and I'm excited to say that it won! I have a very nice vampire-themed canvas bag to show for it. I'll post the story here eventually, as a kind of epilogue to Healing Blood, but if you're dying to read it now, the address is (and please forgive me if I don't figure this out right):

Billswikidwomen (dot) wetpaint (dot) com (slash) page (slash) The+Good-Bye+Kiss

Enjoy.

In the meantime, this is an extra-meaty update, almost 30 pages in Word—longer than any previous chapter I've done. A huge shout out to my new beta m-o-x-i-e-m-o! You have her to thank for the twist of lemon in the middle of the chapter. You're welcome, Sookieverse.

**Now, a WARNING** on this very long author's note: This chapter contains mention of SIDS. I know a lot of readers on here are young parents and I don't know how many of you have experienced this, but I figured it would be a sensitive topic, and I wanted to give you a head's up. Now, I hope you enjoy. –Bella

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

* * *

Last time on Healing Blood:

_She sighed and sounded almost happy, but she did not open her eyes._

_"Bless... Eric," she half-slurred, and I wasn't entirely sure she wasn't still dreaming. Her hand at my waistband flopped against me helplessly and made me smile. Was she attempting to comfort me? This fragile human woman? In her sleep?_

_I leaned and brushed my lips against her golden hair. "For what, dear one?"_

_"You... me," she mumbled and burrowed my face into me further. I could not make out the word in the middle, even with my excellent hearing. "Thank y..."_

_I looked at her surprised. She was not angry at me now after her explosion earlier? I raised an eyebrow. Life with her would never be dull._

_She stilled for a second, the only sound her heavy breathing. Then she gave my torso a feeble squeeze. Yes, not entirely sure she wasn't dreaming._

_"Baby," she breathed, her breath playing against my torso. "Love you."_

***

**Chapter 21: The Promise**

**Sookie's POV**

I didn't bother opening my eyes. The shooting pain up my back told me everything I needed to know.

It was like my body had locked itself up overnight and wasn't about to uncoil anytime soon. I took a slow breath in and just as I started to feel my lungs fill, the pain stabbed up from my hip to my neck. I coughed out the breath. I curled my shoulders further into myself and hugged the mattress for all I was worth.

I could barely hear the birds outside and didn't know what they were so chipper about. I was so irritable from lack of sleep and the pain that I liked to have spit. I felt for Bonnie today. She was going to find me in a state. And I was going to be even more irritated with her loud brain than usual. I sighed and winced at the pain.

The heavy ache of guilt tightening my jaw and bunching my shoulders seemed only fitting given my dark mood. I knew somewhere in the back of my memory that I'd felt good recently--that Eric had made me feel extremely good, but now it seemed to have all flown out the window, along with my motivation. I don't know how, but I knew it was coming. Something about when I fell asleep last night was bugging me. Maybe it was seeing Bill so drawn and weak, maybe it was that disturbing, needing look on Eric's face just before he wore me out. Whatever it was, it had bloomed overnight and now, well, now I was in a state.

My dreams, naturally, hadn't help. All I could see was Claudine happy in the chair next to me in the hospital, knitting something for her beautiful little fairy baby. And then her image morphed into something awful. Something broken and drawn and drained of life. I flashed to that knitting needle sticking out of Breandan as he breathed down on me.

Then her face changed into Dawson's--bright and smiling in front of my house one minute, then dripping blood onto the floor of that makeshift hospital room the next. It just went on and on: There was Bill, strong and sneaking up behind Thing One like my very own avenging angel. Then he was there gray, sunken, barely able to move at human speed, let alone vampire speed. By the time I got to Gran's round, gently creased face, I was convulsing on the bed, shaking my head tightly and giving myself kink after kink in my tightly wound neck muscles. I tightened up all the more, making the pain in my back more pronounced.

When I finally opened my eyes and saw my hands all healed and pink, I'd never felt such shame.

Having people willing to die for you sounds romantic, but now I couldn't believe I'd ever been touched by the sentiment.

It's horrible--a curse. I'm nothing--just a barmaid. Just a small-town girl with a disability who wanted friends and wanted to date someone without hearing every commentary that passed through his head about me. And now magical creatures, far more magical, more beautiful than me, more kind... They'd all died. And I was left alive, but barely hanging on.

I was shaming their memory by not getting better, and I was too fragile to live up to their faith in me.

A little spark of energy filled me, a red hot one. It wasn't right, wasn't fair that they put this on me. I never asked it of them. A person shouldn't have the power over the life and death of another. That's only for God. Bill and Claudine and even Tray had agreed to guard me even without me asking or even knowing it sometimes, and they'd thrown themselves headlong in front of every menacing, deadly thing that aimed itself at me. What'd they get for their trouble? Nothing but pain, suffering and death. No pretty fairy babies for Claudine. No romance for Tray. None for Bill either, I realized sickeningly, as a vision of his face from last night flashed in my brain, filling me with a thousand different feelings, most of them knotting my belly uncomfortably and making bile rise up in my throat.

It was too much. I wasn't strong enough. I couldn't do this. I shivered in defeat, letting my slack muscles slump against the mattress. I felt the blood pounding at my temples and wondered, _Why me? Why did I make it when they didn't?_

I groaned.

Because, really, I _had_ asked for it—asked for the protection, demanded it, even. Some stern part of my brain asserted itself and reminded me of the calls I'd made just before the war: To Alcide to call in my Friend of the Pack status, to Niall, to... Oh good Lord. Eric had been right. My breath hitched and I cursed myself for crying again. Here I'd convinced myself that Eric had gone to war on my behalf because he cared about me and he'd reminded me, just last night, that I'd insisted he do it not because I was his Bonded but because King De Castro had promised his protection. And--oh Lord! Clancy. I'd totally forgotten.

And that stern, mean voice—cruelly honest as it was--reminded me of the little conversation between Eric and Clancy just before the carnage at the supe hospital. Clancy didn't want to die for a human.

_If you die, you'll die because I, your Sheriff, ordered you to. The reason is not pertinent..._ Eric had said. At the time I remember feeling that the fight was ill-timed and insulting, that Clancy didn't think I was worth protecting.

But now I knew the truth, to my spasming muscles and achy bones: Clancy was right. I wasn't worth it. I wasn't worth dying for. And he had. They all had.

And for what? I didn't warrant such devotion and I surely couldn't live up to it. I was no better than Arlene, I thought bitterly. I'd wanted love and companionship at any cost, and it had cost those I loved dearly. I'd been so hell-bent on staying alive that I'd killed and offered up others for the slaughter.

Maybe I should be ordered to stay away from vampires, like Arlene had been ordered to stay away from the Fellowship--not because they were dangerous for me, but because I was dangerous to them.

The thought left me cold and I felt tiny and more alone. I didn't have humans willing to stand by me—not even my own brother, I thought bitterly. Though he wasn't exactly human anymore, either. Maybe neither of us ever were. Still, maybe I shouldn't have supes. I didn't know where I belonged anymore. This defeat felt familiar, and my healing wounds tingled in sympathy.

Out of nowhere I was right back to where I'd been before Eric had arrived and scooped me up off the floor and bathed me in his blood. I was... I was so broken. More broken than ever.

I brought a pillow to my face and let my tears soak it. Maybe I could just disappear. If it would bring them all back, I'd do it in a second.

*******

I opened my eyes and it felt like a 20-pound weight was sitting on the back of my eyeballs. I guess that's what was pushing the tears out because I realized as my eyes fluttered open that I was crying in my sleep.

I tried to rouse myself from my sorry mood, remembering that this wasn't me, that I was stronger than this, reminding myself how much I'd survived. But my sourness stuck to me like stink on shit. I lowered my head to the mattress and squeezed my arms under me to make myself a tight little ball, like I used to when I was a kid while playing hide and seek with Jason. I'd thought if I just lay still enough, Jason wouldn't find me under the blankets; I would just fade away and disappear.

For once, I had no memory of my dream—no flashes of pain or loneliness. Just a heavy old feeling--so heavy I thought it might be pressing a Sookie-sized hole into my old mattress. I vaguely remembered a time when I hadn't been able to get out of bed, a time when Gran had come around day and night to check on me and feed me and comfort me even though I wouldn't accept the comforting. How could I have? I'd lost the most important people in my life. I squeezed my eyes shut against the memories and then opened my eyes, reminding myself that I was 27, not 9, and that I'd turned out just fine without them. I stretched a little and all the usual aches and pains were there. Somehow they seemed worse in the light of day.

I felt my shoulders bunch and my body heaved. I was bawling and the keening grief just built with every sob. It hardly seemed fair. Crying was supposed to be a release. It wasn't supposed to make things worse.

I lay there for a long few minutes, just feeling myself cry, feeling the stab of pain in my neck and back every time a sob rocked through me. All I could think was, _alone_.

When I could, I dragged myself to Eric's side of the bed. The cool dryness of the sheet was a comfort, as was Eric's thick scent on the pillow. I pressed my nose into it and a new sob bubbled up from my belly.

_Alone_. I missed him. I didn't deserve him. Maybe I couldn't do this to him anymore--subject him to how dangerous I was. I pressed my cheek into the mattress and closed my eyes against the glaring light. Why do I miss him so much if he was just here a few hours ago? When did I become that woman?

I sighed, defeated. This illness had changed me, in ways I wasn't sure I liked and I certainly didn't approved of it. I'd seen too many women give up everything for a man. I'd seen too many women pin all their hopes on a fella only to have him disappear, and take her CD player with him. I tried to shake my head in frustration at myself, but my neck wouldn't allow it.

But here I was. I had been alone with Eric Northman for just about one week and I was hopelessly, irrationally in love with him.

And it hurt. I let myself cry: for the woman I once was--a woman with backbone. For the future I'd never have. And for the fear that I'd be just another foolish woman who got her heart stomped by a man who never promised anything. Or the other fear, the fear that my love would hurt him eventually, if it hadn't already.

In for a penny, in for a pound--both of us.

**Bonnie's POV**

_Ay dios mio_. If those girls don't stop fighting with each other over their school clothes, so help me God I will lay their clothes out on the front porch and have an impromptu yard sale. Then the girls can wear my castoffs and their daddy's and aunt's hand-me-downs from when they were kids and see how lucky they are to have everything they do.

I glanced at the time on the little digital display on my old two-door Fiesta. 12:21 p.m.

It was our own fault. I couldn't help but love those girls. When Hector told me he wanted me to take the girls for a few years while he got his life straightened out, I couldn't have been more thrilled. Having my own babies out of the house made me so sad. I was a mom, even when I was a child. I liked having someone to fuss over and care for, and Sal could only take so much of it before he started grunting and growling and puffing his chest out about being a man and doing things his own self. I chuckled. My Sal. He was so good to me.

So good that when Hector asked me, his favorite Aunt, to take in the girls, he'd made a show of considering it and then he'd given in with that sweet smile of his, pleased that I was pleased. I missed the energy of curious young children running around my house. I missed having a family to cook for. Sure, Sal loved my cooking, and I loved cooking for my patients, but having a big family dinner with everyone talking over each other and reaching across the table for seconds makes my heart sing.

I smiled a small smile. I thought of last night's dinner. Cece and Theresa were debating the relative attractiveness of the new boys they'd met at Cece's special social group, using criteria like their proficiency at some new video game player and how fast they could run, and I'd reached across the table and taken Sal's hand. Sal gave me that look he always did—that look of patient indulgence. He'd been happy to have the house to ourselves. He loved being able to corner me in the kitchen and smooch on me while the chicken fried. Now that the girls were with us, those uninterrupted moments were few and far between. But I did my best to make it up to him and give him a little sugar when I could.

I glanced back at the clock. 12:43 p.m. At this rate, I'd get there just on time at 1 p.m.

I'll be honest: When I received the call this morning from my agency telling me Mr. Northman had asked me to come in late and stay till 9 p.m.--well, the words that came out of my mouth would have made a sailor blush. I know because Sal looked at me with wide eyes and a mouth agape--and he'd served in Korea with some of the bawdiest guys I'd ever met. Thank heavens the girls were in the middle of their ritual morning bickering about what they were going to borrow from one another and what was clean and they hadn't heard me. I would have been mortified, and they sure never would have let me forget it. The next time I tried to correct their growing potty mouths, Cece would just roll her eyes and Theresa would giggle.

But the promise of a $500 bonus for staying late, plus the time-and-a-half I got for working after hours zipped my lip real quick. Besides, I understood the reason: Mr. Northman had business to attend to and Sookie, the poor dear, really shouldn't be left alone in that house while he's out.

I did worry about her being alone this morning, though. I hoped she hadn't hurt herself. And I wondered sadly where all her other friends were.

I'd been so surprised the first day I'd arrived at her house. I was used to watching after vampires' fancy women. Ay yi yi. I can't tell you the number of young, beautiful and nearly drained women I've had to nurse back to life in the last five years. I shook my head and narrowed my eyes as I turned onto Hummingbird Lane from the highway. Their vampires only stopped by when my three-week contracts were nearly up and they quickly sent me away as soon as they arrived. When I returned the next day, those poor girls had been nearly ravaged by those vampires, covered in fang marks, and I'd had to start all over again bringing them back to health.

Sometimes the extra pay isn't worth the heartache of this job. I shook my head.

The crunch of the gravel under my little car made it list left and right as I slowly pulled up in front of Sookie's sweet little farmhouse. I looked at it again. This was a well-loved house. It reminded me of the little house my parents' family had in Reynosa, a little border town just south of Texas. It's not that their little adobe house resembled this white clapboard house. It's that it looked lived-in and appreciated, if not totally maintained. It was the kind of house generations treasured. When I saw that the back of the house was newer than the front, and that the rooms seemed to be added on with no rhyme or reason, I had loved the house instantly. And I'd decided I'd loved Sookie instantly, too--even with how suspicious and scared she was of me.

That's what had surprised me about Sookie. She wasn't like all those—well, there's just no other word for them--fangbangers I'd nursed back to health. She wasn't nearly drained. She was scared out of her wits and clearly had PTSD. I'd seen it before once, in the male companion of a particularly well-connected Were. The Were didn't even stop to think that his life could be affecting his mate's until one too many wars left the human trembling on the floor. I'll tell you, you haven't seen powerless till you've seen a six-foot-tall man scared of a five-foot grandma.

But Sookie--oh, she's a scrappy one. I hefted the groceries onto a hip as I found the right key for the kitchen door.

As I went through the mundane routine of unlocking the door and carrying everything inside, I thought about that first day I saw Dr. Eugenides at the door. I'd met him before, of course. A few of my patients with big-shot supe boyfriends or girlfriends had contracted for the doctor's services. The first time I saw him, you couldn't have stopped me from laughing and I'd quickly excused myself to the kitchen to titter in privacy. But when I saw him at Sookie's door, I was nothing but relieved. It proved what I already knew; Sookie was different. Dr. Eugenides only came out for serious cases and for people who were ready to do the work. I knew then that I didn't have to worry about Sookie. Not much, anyway.

Once inside, I looked around and listened. Not a peep. Sookie must still be sleeping. I shook my head and raised my eyebrows. If I knew this vampire, he'd kept Sookie up late even though I had expressly told him not to. But that's how it goes with vampires. You can't tell them anything, especially when they're in love.

And that vampire--he is definitely in love. I'd never seen a vampire so attentive. Heck, I'd never seen a vampire volunteer to stay at his human's house. I usually worked around Shreveport's nicer neighborhoods where supes kept their homes and their humans. That he came here, that he stayed here, meant something for sure. And not only that. He gave such nice gifts. Oh, if Sal had ever gotten me a slip like that one Mr. Northman got for Sookie...! Well, I'd slap him for spending so much of his pension on something so frivolous. But not until I'd kissed him silly first.

And the fact that Sookie looked better--healthier--after a night with her vampire... That said a lot.

But Sookie, she seemed less sure. I didn't know if it was the PTSD, which can surely do some strange things to your love life, or if it was just how she was, but Sookie sure didn't seem sold on her vampire. I shook my head. I'd probably never find out why.

I'd never say so--it's not my place and I doubted either of them would listen to me anyway--but these two were sweet together. I flashed back to the night Sookie had collapsed in the shower. She'd been so terrified, and Mr. Northman had been there immediately. I nearly jumped out of my skin when that big hunk of a vampire shot into Sookie's room. I struggled to pull Sookie up and drag her to her bed, and then suddenly this big, shirtless vampire was standing over me, fangs bared, hands curling into claws that scared the living daylights out of me. Oh, my. But then he'd spoken softly to me and dismissed me. In the split-second before I ran from the house, I'd seen Mr. Northman curl against Sookie and cuddle her to him, asking her to tell him what was wrong.

Young love. They were wasting so much time fighting and resisting each other. I don't care if you are a vampire, you never know how long you're going to get to spend with the person you love. Seemed like Mr. Northman knew that. I wondered if Sookie did.

I put the bag on the counter and started putting the butter, eggs, celery, cans of soup and chicken away. I thought I'd make some chicken and dumplings for dinner tonight. It would take some time and I thought maybe, if she was up to it, she'd want to come into the kitchen and sit with me while she ate. I was determined to get that girl moving around a little today.

After unpacking the bag I turned to the kitchen table and smiled. I picked up Mr. Northman's daily note, tucked under a pile of small presents and next to the beautiful bouquet of flowers I hadn't been able to show Sookie yesterday because of the construction.

_Bonita:_

_Your willingness to adjust your schedule today pleases me. I must attend a work meeting at first dark, and expect to be back by 9 p.m. I expect your agency has already informed you of the bonus I will pay if you monitor Sookie until then. I will also have a vampire guard placed outside in case of trouble, but I don't expect any and he's been ordered not to disturb you._

_As for Sookie's care today, she will need copious support. She had a very long night last night--she had invited some workers over, and was later disturbed by the appearance of a rogue vampire. I expect that will not be problem after this night, but she may want to discuss it with you. Feed her well. The doctor has asked that she sit by the window regularly to work on getting outside. I would like for you to help her with this today, and encourage her to practice, if only for a few minutes. _

_I have also directed the construction crew not to return until my Sookie gives her approval. I have listed their number below. In the meantime, please pass along these gifts to my Bonded. A new bouquet will arrive today as well. Bring them to Sookie's room, along with this voice machine. It is cued up and ready to be played, I believe. I have left the instructions in case there are any difficulties. My cell phone number is below, in case Sookie has need of me while I am away. _

_Do your best to assure her that I will return to her as quickly as possible. I expect this to be difficult news for her._

_Eric Northman_

I shook my head. Vampire or not, Mr. Northman was a man, which meant he'd left the dirty work of telling Sookie that he'd be away tonight to me. Sheesh. First he leaves me to deal with the fallout of the construction on his lady, and now this? I'll earn every penny of that bonus today.

I hoisted the big bouquet of flowers in my arms and tucked the few other gifts under my arm and carried them unsteadily into Sookie's room.

I eased open the door and peered in, unsure what I'd find. I sighed. Poor, poor thing. She was curled into the tiniest ball she could make herself and her hands were clenched into fists at her chest. I shook my head. She was trying to protect herself from something.

I walked as quietly as I could across the room and placed the flowers by the window and arranged them prettily. I placed the two wrapped gifts on her bedside table with the little recorder atop it. Sometimes I wondered how these old vampires learned technology. It amused me that he left the instructions to the little device. I wonder if there's anything recorded on there at all.

Then I pulled the calendar out from under my arm. I scanned the cover. Vampire Hunks of Fangtasia, huh? I'd heard of that bar. A few of the fancy women I'd nursed back to health had talked about getting better and heading back over there. I never understood the appeal.

Then I flipped open the calendar to the current month and my breath caught. Oh... Oh, my. My. Um. Oh. I swear, I must have turned five shades of red. I hung it on the little nail to the right of the window by the bathroom door and left it at that.

I scurried away quickly, trying to distract myself from what I saw and the little note attached. Maybe I wasn't supposed to open it. Maybe I wasn't meant to see it. Maybe...

Oh. But I'd never look at Mr. Northman the same way again.

I fanned myself and swayed my hips a little wider as I walked swiftly back into the kitchen.

**Sookie's POV**

I opened my eyes grumpily, but then my vision focused on Eric's perfect butt.

I snapped my eyes shut quickly, figuring this was another one of those dreams where I imagine making love to him in a field in the daylight--imagining he's human and works a regular job and that when we make love he gives me a baby. I sighed, happy for a respite from the dark thoughts that haunted me today. I tentatively stretched myself out a little. A pang of pain shot up my side and into my neck and told me that wasn't a good idea.

I wished he were really here, and I could somehow not be dangerous to him. I allowed my mind to replay my favorite fantasy: Eric walking up to the house some Saturday afternoon with fish caught from the lake. His skin would be glowing tan, the sun glinting off his golden hair. He'd hand me the fish and press me against the counter in the kitchen and I almost wouldn't mind that suddenly my whole kitchen smelled like fish--that he smelled like fish. I'd kiss him back and throw the fish in the sink and he'd prop me up on the counter and slide my panties off and fuck me right there, under my little cotton sundress.

I felt heat gathering in my stomach and groaned. In my dreams, Eric's tan skin would have a sheen of sweat covering it as he moved into me, and he would taste of salt and the sun and a little pungent. I'd feel his beard scratch my neck as he sucked and bit. I'd tug down the top of my dress, anxious to feel his lips on my breasts and Eric would groan, looking up at me with that look. I sighed. That look that he only had once, when he depended on me, when he needed me truly, more than anything else.

"Sookie," he'd pant, his breath coming fast, my body arching in response. He'd take my mouth and bite softly on my lips, making me moan. He'd be perfect.

But always in this dream—always—when he got to my breasts, when his whiskers scratched the delicate skin and his warm tongue found my nipples I would begin to shake. And I couldn't help it—I always felt his fangs at that moment, his dull teeth turning deliciously sharp, biting into me and sucking. And I'd come. It'd be like he sucked it right out of me.

I panted here and now, blinking a little, feeling my own sweat and my own heart beat race. I ran my hand over myself and paused at my tingling breasts, fingering the little indents of the marks left by Eric's last feeding. I felt the blush rise higher on my cheek.

I'd never have a normal life, I knew. And now my abnormal one seemed shot too.

I took a deep breath and prepared myself for reality: I'd never get to see his butt in the daylight. My lover, such as he was, was dead to the world and laying in a little cubby under my guest room closet. A wave of regret flowed through me and suddenly I was sad. Sad and groggy. And then my mind remembered what I'd been shutting out this morning. All those lost faces flooded through my mind and I was so sad I couldn't even cry.

What time was it, anyway?

I opened my eyes and as they focused, my mood changed so fast I thought I might have whiplash. A giggle escaped my lips. I'm not usually one to giggle, but I just couldn't help it.

I rolled onto my stomach carefully, mindful of the ache in my side and back, and peered out from behind my lashes at Eric's perfect, round, gorgeous butt staring back at me. I may have hummed a little.

That vampire.

I pulled myself from the covers, which had wrapped around my wobbly legs, and went to stand in front of the butt in question. My muscles protested, but even grief couldn't keep me from admiring this.

Mr. February.

Eric had apparently pinned the new Vampire Hunks of Fangtasia calendar to my wall when I was sleeping. This year, instead of being propped up on a bed with a robe just barely covering his Mr. Happy, he was looking out from a very steamy looking shower, his goods covered by the fogged glass of the shower door, water falling in rivulets down his perfect, muscled back, dipping in to the delicious curve of his waist and on to his award-winning butt. He smoldered at the camera, mouth slightly open and fangs peeking out.

Oh my stars. I had never wanted to lick those fangs more. And maybe bite his butt a few times.

My heart raced and I felt my skin grow hot... I shifted on my feet and felt my bones and muscles and joints creek and sigh. Some of the ache was good, though, and I smiled a little wider, remembering Eric's intent look and his hard thrusting, and marveled at my healing body's ability to take it, to welcome it, despite everything. My throat was suddenly terribly dry. And if I traced my fingers over the curve of his butt, well, I was just admiring what had to be one of God's greatest creations.

Not that I'd tell him that. His head was big enough already. I was amazed it could fit through that shower door.

When I pulled my eyes from his butt, I noticed a little Post-It on the calendar:

_Dear One,_

_I thought of you with every frame._

_Until first dark,_

_E_

_PS--Care to see an outtake?_

I shivered and bit my lip. I looked back at that butt and his eyes and those fangs and the curve of his lower back. I ran my finger down the curve of his shoulders and back. Now here, I thought, was the one man who hadn't offered to die for me. Now I was glad. I hoped he never would. I hoped I never put us in that situation again.

Us.

I shook my head. I tried to swallow but my throat was like sandpaper. I might have been a little light headed.

I shook my head. Nope, I wasn't going to moon over Eric like some lovesick fangbanger, and I certainly wasn't going to spend time trying to parcel out what all these conflicting emotions were. I was already on overload. Nope. I had things to do. And they started in the bathroom.

I'd have plenty of time to talk to Dr. Gumby about my doubts and fears and guilt. Right now, I needed a bath, and I needed it bad.

*******

I had just leaned down to try to start the water in the tub, dying for a Epsom Salts bath, when I heard Bonnie's loud brain barreling down on me. _Cece's gotta be good this week because next week she... Sal so sweet last night... Hope Sookie likes chicken and--_

"Oh! I thought that was you!" Bonnie said behind me, causing me to whirl and wince at once. I was still wearing Eric's big old robe and Bonnie looked at me all goo-goo eyes and her brain was no better, carrying on about how "my vampire" sure knew how to take care of me, and her mind flashing with no small lust to the calendar and her skin turning lots of shades of red. "I'm glad you're up. I understand you had a long night?"

"Yeah," I said, hoping she'd leave. Not only was I in physical pain, but the struggle to keep her thoughts out was already starting to give me a headache. I could do without her opinions of my body or Eric's. Though of course she was right about his.

I sat on the edge of the tub as it filled and rested my head in my hands. They were cool and felt nice on my face.

I felt a light touch on my shoulder and heard Bonnie thinking sympathetic thoughts. Ugh. I just wanted to be miserable. And I just wanted to do it alone. But how do you say that to someone's grandma? Gran wouldn't forgive me.

I huffed out a long breath and looked up at Bonnie, who's calm, quiet brown eyes were studying me impassively. I winced again and my hand flew to my neck.

"Sore, huh?"

I nodded carefully.

Bonnie made a small sound and nodded her head. "Well, then, I know what to do about that."

And just like that she was gone. I looked up and said a little thank you to Jesus. I was just sighing, enjoying how quiet the room became when she was gone, when I heard her brain coming back. She was excited because she'd been certified in massage and hadn't gotten to use it much. Great.

Just then, I started to feel... itchy--if you can be itchy from the inside out. Just... uncomfortable, like I was coming out of my skin. Like something wasn't right. I was irritated at myself for looking at Bonnie's gifts as burdens, and irritated with her for being so unflaggingly cheerful and efficient. Sometimes you just want to lie in bed for a day and feel sorry for yourself.

I could see that Bonnie wasn't going to let that happen.

She appeared in the bathroom door hefting a big bag of Epsom salts and grinned at me. She was so proud that she'd remembered to add them before I got in.

"Well, now," she started, as she ripped open the bag with strong hands and started pouring mounds of the little crystals into the water. She peered up at me as I watched them fall in. "This is quite different from the last time we did this, huh? You're holding yourself up on your own, for one thing. That's a good sign. And you started the water yourself. That's a good sign too."

I grunted. She was right. I just didn't want to look at how I was doing better. I just... couldn't feel like I deserved it--to feel better, to get better.

She swirled the crystals around until they dissolved and then looked at me expectantly. I nodded, resigned and stood carefully, grabbing my back like I was 60 instead of 27. Come to think of it, Bonnie was probably 60 and she was much stronger than I was. She reminded me of Gran so much. I gave her a small smile and then it faltered, Gran's image morphing again, as it had done in my dream. I felt the beginning of tears, and... Oh, hell. I just gave up. Fine. I'm crying. Again. All day long. That's what I do now.

I sighed and stood and turned and took the robe off. I averted my eyes from Bonnie. I balled my fists. I hated this. I hated that this was my life now. I hated that I needed her so much. I couldn't have met her eyes now if I wanted to.

If Bonnie noticed, she didn't comment on it, even in her brain. In fact, she seemed to think this was normal, which I guess relaxed me just the tiniest amount. Again, she was picturing other people she'd helped into baths like this--in particular a big hulk of a guy who looked frightened and wouldn't look at her. And just like now, then she just thought how proud she was that he was taking the step to get better.

So I moved. I did what she instructed. I lifted one foot into the hot water and then the other. I let her steady me and guide me to lie back. I let her place a washcloth under my neck and another over my eyes. I heard her rummage in the cabinet and when she returned I let her start brushing out my hair.

And when she spoke, after many minutes of just her brushing my hair and humming and thinking about what she was going to do with $500, I didn't have the energy to deny her.

"So what has you so wound up this morning, Sookie? Is it fallout from that construction yesterday? I wouldn't blame you if it was."

I slowly shook my head, feeling the massage on my neck from where it met the edge of the tub. The water felt nice. I didn't feel less tense, just... warmer. The towel over my eyes was calming, and it was nice that I could cry without her seeing.

"I just..." I started. But how... How do you explain something like this? How do you tell someone you're responsible for six deaths that you know of, two at your own hand? How do you explain how rotten it makes you feel, to your core?

"I... was thinking of people who've died," I said lamely. I didn't add _because of me_. I didn't want to scare her.

Bonnie clicked her tongue and made soothing sounds, her fingers now massaging my scalp in a way that made me cry harder, though that made no sense. I blubbered. Well, I guess _that_ cat's out of the bag.

I shivered. Or rather, I started to shake, as the feelings started welling up again. Behind the washcloth, I saw Claudine, Clancy, Gran, Dawson... Then I saw Amelia leaving in tears. I cried again and brought my hands up to cover my face even more than it already was. There weren't enough washcloths in the world to cover my shame. I tried to curl in a little but Bonnie held me still.

She rubbed my shoulders and massaged my arms till she got to my hands, moving them away.

"None of that now, dear," she said, her tone a little sharp. Now that really did remind me of Gran. "I don't know what you've been through to make you feel so hurt, but I'll tell you this: Those people who died? They loved you. And they'd be awful upset if you wasted what was left of your life mourning them instead of living."

I nodded. I knew it. It was true. But that didn't make the shame go away.

She patted my shoulder.

"Lean forward." I complied and Bonnie started rubbing my neck in deep, slow swipes, pushing the knots of muscle up and away from my spine.

"Now I'm going to tell you something," she said a few minutes later. Her voice was tense and thin and she almost sounded angry. "And I'm going to trust that it won't leave this bathroom. Can I trust you with that, Sookie?"

I sniffled pitifully and nodded.

"Good. Now... I told you I cared for my folks when they got older. Well, I also liked to help when any of my brothers had babies, or any of my nieces and nephews did. Well, my nephew Hector..."

She paused, and her hands stopped on my neck and I squeaked a little in protest without meaning to.

She took a deep breath. "Bonnie, you don't have to..."

"I know, I know," she said irritably. In a way, I preferred her irritation to her cheeriness. "But... Well, you know, Sookie. I like you. I hate to see you suffering like this. And if this can help alleviate some of the guilt, well, I'll do what I can. It may not help. But maybe it will."

I nodded and wrapped my arms around my knees. Bonnie moved on to my shoulders and I almost moaned with relief.

"Well, Hector is a sweet boy. He's my older brother's son, his first born. The kids I'm raising now, they're his. The sweetest little girls you can imagine." Her brain told me something different. The oldest was a teen. Not sweet. "Well, I was there when Hector's wife, Esther, had her second child--Cecelia was first, and next was Jaime. He was a tiny little thing--fit is his daddy's palm he was so small. But he was full of life, always squirming and letting us know he was there.

"Well, three months after his birth, Esther was just getting back into her routine, and I was doing a night shift for them--watching Jaime, feeding him the bottles Esther had prepared, changing his diapers... You know, the usual things. Holding him... Oh! Holding a three-month-old—have you done it?"

I shook my head and it was a little easier. My whole body was on high alert, though. If something happened to a little three-month-old baby, I didn't know if I could handle it. I hugged my knees tighter.

"Well, they're just perfect at that age. They just curl up on you and sleep. You've never felt anything so good or so natural. That baby smell just makes you baby-drunk. I swear, if I hadn't had the surgery--" I could see from her mind that she'd had a hysterectomy, "--I would have run back to Sal and tried to get pregnant again right away!"

She laughed and then grew quiet. Her thumbs jabbed into the knots where my neck and shoulder met and I groaned. A good groan.

"So I was watching him, letting Esty get a little shut-eye, and after his bottle and a little Auntie time, I put him in his crib. He was sleeping so soundly, all bound up in his swaddling blanket and looking like a little bug in a rug. So I went in the other room, to straighten up, and I don't know what."

She stopped moving. Her voice got so quiet and still it scared me.

"When I checked on him an hour later he wasn't breathing."

I sucked in a breath and my hand flew to my mouth. I blinked away tears. And then I was angry.

"Wh-Why are you telling me this?! That's... That's just so terrible, Bonnie! What did you do?"

"I... Well I panicked. Nothing had changed. He'd just stopped breathing. I tried putting him over my shoulder to burp him, thinking maybe a bubble of formula got stuck in his throat, but nothing came out. I'd been trained in CPR and so I tried it on him. I checked his mouth and he hadn't gotten anything in it. I took him out of the swaddling blanket and looked him over. Nothing seemed wrong. I..." Her voice had grown thick and then it cracked. She swallowed hard and I didn't care about the washcloth anymore. I let it fall and turned to look at her. Her eyes were clouded and spilling over with tears. Her jaw clenched. Worry lines creased her face.

Suddenly, she looked right at me.

"It.. It was the worst night of my life, worse than my parents' own deaths. I woke up Esty and Hector. Cece stayed asleep until her mama started wailing. Seeing her come into the nursery and see her mom slapping me... well, I don't know if you ever get over that. It was declared Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. That's what the doctors call it when they can't explain the death. They even tried to say that maybe it was because we were poor."

I narrowed my eyes to match hers. It was the worst thing I could imagine... almost.

"Oh Bonnie..." I reached out and put a hand on hers. I squeezed it. I would have hugged her, but that might have seemed odd, as I was naked and wet.

She looked down and shook her head. She squeezed my hand back.

"Esty and Hector were never the same, as you can well imagine. Hector started drinking more. Esty had the worst case of post-partum depression you can imagine. When she had Theresa, we all held our breath until she was a year old. I offered to come help with the baby, but Esty didn't want me there. I couldn't blame her, and I'd never tell her but I was a little relieved. I'd stopped caring for the family's newborns after that. I blamed myself. I just knew--I knew!--that there was something I could have done. Here I was, trained to help people, to nurse them back to health, and I'd missed all the signs, whatever the signs were. I'd let him die on my watch."

She looked up at me and it was like the baby was right here in the room with us. She looked destroyed, shocked, like it still didn't make sense.

Then I saw flashes in her brain: Horrible fights between Bonnie's nephew and his wife. Three a.m. phone calls from Hector to get the kids out of the house because he was drunk and so was she, and the kids were frightened. I heard her think about how she didn't know if she could trust herself with those kids, how she forced herself to stay up all night, and watched them obsessively until dawn. How Esty never forgave her, how the couple divorced and Esty got custody, but then her drinking got as bad as Hector's and Hector suggested Bonnie take the kids when social services came out to check on why the girls hadn't been in school.

I watched it all play out in her eyes and her brain.

And then I didn't care. I hugged her anyway. When she pulled away, she was fierce.

"_Mija_, I can't tell you how much I wish I could go back and hold that little boy in my arms again and keep hold of him and watch him so I could do something when he stopped breathing." Her hands were shaking in mine and her face turned steely. I had no doubt that she would have kept him alive by breathing for him if she could have. I could see her doing it.

"I had lots of days in bed where nothing Sal said was right and nothing he did could have soothed me. But then one day, Hector asked me to take the girls, just so he and his wife could have some time to get their lives together," she told me, trying to be diplomatic about what really happened. "I had been feeling so much better, and taking the girls actually made me feel worse at first. I was terrified it would happen again. But... I just had to move forward. I just had to do it for them. And I had to trust in Jesus that it wouldn't happen again. It felt like God was giving me another chance, and it seemed like it would have been an abomination to say no."

She squared her eyes at me.

"Now, I don't know what happened for you. I don't know who died or why. But God gave you this life, gave you another chance. And you had better take it. Those people, they'd be just livid if you lost this chance."

I turned back around and slumped into the cooling water. I couldn't look at her for this.

"It was my fault," I said, my quiet voice cracking. I coughed. "They... They were trying to protect me. And they died. I lost some wonderful people because I'm... I'm too much trouble." I stared at the grout.

Bonnie took up massaging me again.

"Were they adults?"

I nodded.

"And they loved you enough to put themselves in harm's way for you?"

I nodded again. I knew where this was going but it just didn't seem to cut through the fog of shame I felt.

"Would you do the same for them?"

"Of course," I said, almost offended that she would ask. Never let it be said that Sookie Stackhouse doesn't take up for her own. "But..."

"No," she interrupted me. "Now, I'm not a doctor, and you should maybe run this past that doctor of yours... But let me tell you something about family: I would have gladly crawled into that crib and suffocated to keep that little boy alive. I would do it in a heartbeat today, right now." She punctuated that with a tight squeeze on my shoulders. The image scared me and reminded me of Gran on the kitchen floor. I choked on my tears.

"I would be irate at him if he wouldn't let me do it," she said, fairly growling. "And if I did it and he spent his life whipping himself for it, I would come back from the grave to slap him myself. He would have been worth it because I loved him, young though he was. He _was_ an angel."

We were a pair, both crying and sniveling in our own little hells. At least she was trying like the dickens to keep it under control. Her voice was getting harsher.

"You are lucky you had so many people who loved you. Take that message with you, not the shame. Do you know how many people out there have no one to take up for them? Who are left floundering and alone, and can't defend themselves? Let me tell you there are plenty. If there weren't, I wouldn't have a job. They loved you and the deed is done, and wherever they are, they are proud that they kept you alive. So you just let that in, _mija_. And you make them proud. You live your life like someone who has lots of people who love her."

She pushed me forward with her hand and then patted my shoulder. I turned a little ways to look at her out of the corner of her eye. She stood up and started moving around, getting my robe and a towel ready for me.

When I caught her eye, she looked abashed. Quietly, she added, "I'm sorry for going on like that, Sookie. I know that was a lot. But I just... I had to get it off my chest. I hope you won't hold it against me."

I looked up at her and felt all the fight leave me. I curled into myself and looked down at the water. I pulled at the chain to the stopper with my toe and let the water out.

"N--no," I managed to whisper.

She held a towel out in front of her for me to step into.

"Good," she said. "Now--you know what you need? Some chicken and dumplings. Come into the kitchen when you're ready and you can help me." She squared her eyes at me and I could see that she'd brook no disobedience. Maybe all grandmothers had that look. "No more moping around for you today."

*******

I meant to just sit down, I swear. But two hours later, I woke up from a sleep so deep I woke in the same position where I laid and for once didn't have any bad thoughts. Too bad as soon as my brain became alert, I was bombarded with the faces that had haunted me all morning--but also a new one. A sweet little baby with a shock of dark hair and perfect little fingers, curled in and cold. I shook my head. This was what I hated about my curse. How come I had to have that image in my head now, too, when the story Bonnie told was bad enough? I'd never get rid of it now. It was right up there with knowing which Merlotte's patrons had cancer, which were in the middle of a divorce, which were secretly gay and lying to their families about it and which had just had a miscarriage. Telepathy is not a gift.

I gritted my teeth and tried to pull myself out of the deep pit I'd found myself in. What was nice? Bonnie giving me a massage was nice. I took a deep breath and then another one. I stretched my arms this way and that over my head. I took another deep breath and tried to remember what Dr. Gumby taught me. I tensed my muscles and released them in time, over and over again, and it was oddly calming. I was already tense, but bunching them up on purpose meant that when I let go, they actually relaxed a little.

By the time I opened my eyes again, 20 minutes had passed and I finally noticed the sweet scent wafting around my room. The sun was streaming in my window and dancing on the blooms of a big, beautiful bouquet of flowers I'd never seen before. I stood unsteadily, my muscles achy from being tense and from not being used.

I walked up to the flowers and smiled, fingering the tiny tight blooms and larger petals. Honeysuckle and orange blossoms and roses. I buried my nose in them and my head drowned in the heady smell. It almost managed to push my darkness aside. I pulled one of the honeysuckle blooms off the bouquet, separating the flower from the stem and letting the drop of nectar fall on my tongue. The explosion of sweetness in my mouth was a welcome change from the dank sourness from hours of sleep. Absently, I wondered how a vampire would know anything about honeysuckle, since it clamped shut at night. Still, it did smell delicious.

The card simply said, "_For my sweet-smelling Sookie. Until first dark, E._"

Something teased at my memory, fighting through all the sadness and shame that was nagging me today. Phantom fingers massaging shampoo into my hair. Eric's teasing voice close to my ear, making me shiver, even now. _Oh my fair and beautiful Sookie, your fragrance is as sweet as honeysuckle and roses, never overpowered by the mange of shifters or weres, _he'd said, over the top as ever, when he'd insisted on washing the "wet dog smell" off of me. I could just see his smirk._ Please do forgive your humble vampire servant._ I looked up at that calendar, at Eric in a shower and that world-class butt, and thought about the days. Was that really just two days ago? It seemed like a lifetime ago...

I picked up the card and held it to my lips, breathing in the smell of the flowers and the slightly chemical smell of the paper and ink. I smiled against it and slipped it into my drawer with the others. Next was a little pile of gifts and a little recorder on my bedside table. I picked up the recorder. I'd never seen anything like it and certainly never had cause to use something like that in my day-to-day life. I wondered how it worked and as I toyed with it a voice came on and I jumped.

"My... _Skita*_! _*Click* *Click*_ My Sookie," came Eric's voice, first irritated and then regaining it's cool assuredness. "I considered leaving you a hand written note this morning but I thought..." And here his voice trailed off, a rare tick for Eric. He was never at a loss for words. He had all my attention now. "... Hearing your words, those beautiful words coming from your mouth this morning inspired me to leave a recording of my own words for you."

I smiled. I didn't know which words he was referring to. But he was right, I wanted to hear his voice.

"I wish to begin by, ah, apologizing for the damage done by the workmen yesterday. I trust in time you will grow to love the new floor. But I do regret your suffering yesterday. The work men need to return to finish the job, but they are under orders to refrain from any work until they receive your command."

I rolled my eyes. My command. I don't go around _commanding_ things, and I don't think most decent people do, either. I could see him commanding, though, and it made me laugh to think of imitating his gruff, entitled demeanor. _I command you to finish my floor!_ For Pete's sake.

But all this I thought quickly because Eric was on to the next thing. His tone changed slightly, becoming softer, gentler, in the way that he spoke when we were alone. I could imagine him holding my face in his hand and looking into my eye with this voice. My insides broke apart and rearranged themselves a little bit.

"I regret as well, dear Sookie, that I must be away from you for a short time at first dark."

I blinked. Oh. Something inside me broke apart and formed again as a knot in my chest. I took a deep breath and fumbled with the recorder, pressing buttons to try to get it to stop. When I succeeded I fell back on the bed and looked at my hands holding the recorder. The knot in my chest flexed and those damning fears slithered out from the dark spots on my soul and reminded me this would happen. I felt the air leave me. I clutched the blankets to me again and suddenly the crease in my hand between my thumb and finger became the most interesting thing in the room. I stared at it and my world became as small as that little space, that one-inch fold of flesh. I felt about as big.

*******

It started small, a little tingle at the base of my spine. A little energy. And suddenly I went from feeling like I'd had the emotional wind knocked out of me to feeling a surge of energy. No, strike that. Of rage.

I tensed up all over and let out a scream. I flung the recorder across the room and watched as it broke into four big hunks of plastic.

In an instant, Bonnie was at my side, looking worriedly from the bits of recorder to my beet red and angry face.

"I hate him. I hate him," I seethed, my throat so tight with anger that it came out as a quiet hiss. Bonnie was in my face and I looked right past her, imagining I was strong enough to break Eric apart like that. Like he was breaking me. I was shaking. "I wish I could rescind his invitation right now. In fact..."

I stood up and shoved past Bonnie none to gently. I vaguely heard her fall to the floor but I couldn't care about her and her old bones right now. Right now, I'd be glad to see him burn in the daylight for treating me sweet last night and leaving me here tonight.

I found myself standing in the guest room, my childhood bedroom, and staring down at the little carpet-covered closet floor. My back was tight. I was rigid with fury, and that odd prickling, itchiness from the inside out crawled around my skin. I had to get it away… I had to get him away. Especially if that's what he intended to do me. I opened my mouth and a dry hiss escaped when I meant for it to be words.

I swallowed and tried again. I felt the tears leaving cold trails on my cheeks and could taste them on my lips. I narrowed my eyes, imagining him walking out the door anyway. The fury bubbled up again and I opened my mouth, this time without hesitation.

"Eric, I resc--"

"Sookie!" Bonnie's hand clamped over my mouth and for an older lady, she sure was strong. She wrenched me back out of the room and dragged me back to my bedroom. "That's enough! Enough of the self-pity and enough of the rage!"

She pulled us both back to my bed and fell backwards with me on her.

We scrambled around to sit up and face each other and Bonnie did an amazing job keeping her hand on my mouth the whole time. I was so out of my head I thought about biting it. Bonnie's face wasn't kind or sympathetic. She was furrowing her brow and angry.

"I've about had it today, Sookie. I know you're suffering. I can't imagine getting through yesterday, being kept up all night by that vampire of yours and then waking up with those terrible thoughts you've had this morning. I thought a nap would help. I thought those nice flowers from Mr. Northman might calm you. There are more. They arrived while you were asleep. See? There."

She turned my head, one hand clamped over my mouth the other tight on the nape of my neck. I refused to open my eyes, I was so angry. I didn't want to see anything sweet from him. He didn't deserve for me to go soft on him, not when he was leaving.

She wrenched my head back to her and I let out a little shriek, the movement surprising my muscles and causing a spasm. My eyes flew open just in time to see Bonnie narrowing hers at me.

She shook her head. "If I move my hand, do you promise not to rescind Mr. Northman's invitation? I won't have you killing someone on my watch."

She was dead serious. I flinched, struggling to breathe under her strangle hold on my face.

I sucked in a breath through my stuffy nose, my mind suddenly working again. I was aghast. For all the sadness I'd felt this morning about all the people who'd died on my account, here I was getting ready to send yet another person to their final death. Tears bubbled up and I shook my head, but only to shake myself out of whatever madness had overtaken me. I started crying and brought my hands up to my face to cover it. I've always been quick to anger, but I'd never intentionally hurt someone who wasn't also about to kill me. I was mad at Eric, and I hated to admit that the idea of him leaving made me feel like I would die, but it wasn't the same thing. When had I crossed that line?

Suddenly I could see myself for the monster I was becoming. My body shivered. I... I couldn't believe myself. I shook a little harder. I found myself leaning forward and curled into Bonnie's arms. She was shushing me and running her hands down my back and holding me close.

I convulsed against her shoulder and I could feel it--I could feel my bones losing connection with each other and my body losing its gravity and I could feel myself falling apart and losing touch with reality, with who I'd been. I'd always known that the Things' viciousness would change me forever, but this... This I couldn't do. I couldn't accept it. I wouldn't let myself become this.

Thank God for Bonnie.

"There, there dear," Bonnie was whispering, rocking me slightly. "This is the worst part. I promise you. It gets better. It gets better. It gets better."

I sobbed against her. I wished I could believe her.

She pulled me back and looked at me. I'm sure I was a fright: snot and tears dripping down my face, my hair a mess, my face burning red with shame and anger. I didn't dare meet her eyes.

She ducked her head so I'd look at her anyway.

"Now promise me that you won't rescind his invitation today or tonight, Sookie. Promise me."

She said it softly, but there was steel in her voice. I nodded dejectedly.

"This is no small thing, Sookie. I need you to say it."

I swiped a hand along my cheek, pushing my hair back from my face. I looked at her. "I promise. I won't rescind his invitation." My words came out in a creaky whisper.

"Good," she said, her eyes hard. "I'm going to hold you to that."

I nodded. "I hope you will."

I looked up at her and apologized for being such a mess.

She nodded and rubbed my upper arms with hers. She was still holding me upright, and for that I was grateful.

"So I guess Mr. Northman told you about work tonight?"

I started crying again, and in order to avoid meeting her eyes, I looked past her at the closet. The closet the light-tighting guy said I should make into a deluxe hidey-chamber for Eric. My heart dropped into my stomach, through the mattress and into the floor. "Yeah," I managed to whisper.

"He'll only be gone till 9, Sookie," she said. "He's coming back. He's assured me."

I took a shaky breath in and risked a look at her. She was appraising me with an understanding gaze.

"Listen, I don't know if this will help," she continued. "But I've worked with other folks with PTSD--I'm guessing that's your diagnosis, because it was theirs--and it's always hard on them the first time their supernatural mate goes away."

"_Mate_?"

But then, without any warning, I was inside her head again, and I saw that same big ole guy curled in the corner, rocking himself, and kicking at Bonnie if she threatened to get close. Bonnie was mad then at the man's boyfriend--a Were, I guessed from the image that came up in her head--for not giving him any warning. And, I realized with surprise, she was mad at Eric, too.

"It's a milestone in recovery, but it can also traumatize the human more--at least from the little experience I've had with it," Bonnie was explaining. "I'm no expert, you understand, but I've seen other folks--big strong men, Sookie, you wouldn't believe if I told you..."

But I did believe because I'd seen it. I'd seen the image in her head of the big burly guy who wouldn't change clothes and wouldn't shower and wouldn't talk for what seemed like days after his hunka hunka went away.

It was an awful fate. It wasn't the fate I wanted for myself.

I looked Bonnie in the eyes, and it was almost as if she was pleading with me.

"Seems to me your reaction is normal, Sookie. But because it's so painful and you're so vulnerable right now, we've got to do everything we can to keep you and your vampire safe. So no rescinding invitations, especially not during the day. And no hurting yourself tonight, Sookie. You have to promise me that. I know you may not feel like it, but you've got to eat. You've got to try to take good care of yourself today. Your body is under enough stress without subjecting it to more by denying yourself food or sleep or exercise or anything else the doctor says you should do."

I pulled Bonnie to me in a big old hug. I laughed through my tears and nodded.

"God bless you, Bonnie," I said. "I'm... To be honest, I'm not sure I'm strong enough to do all that, but I'll try."

Bonnie hugged me back.

"That's all I ask, Sookie. Just give it a shot. You start feeling panicked or angry again, do your best to warn me, OK? We'll find something for you to do that won't hurt anyone. We'll get you through this."

I pulled back, feeling stronger for her faith in me, and nodded, grimly determined but determined nonetheless.

*******

My hands were soft and covered in fluffy white flour and ice water as I tried to combine the two together to form dumplings that would make Gran proud.

The kitchen smelled amazing--of chicken and celery and cream and spices. Bonnie was bustling around the kitchen, chattering away in her mind about the right order to do things in and trying to remember all the steps from memory.

I for one knew how to make dumplings. I'd been making them at Gran's side since I was 12. It was my favorite part, getting my hands dirty in the squishy soft dough and then rolling it out. It was incredibly relaxing. I would swear that Bonnie was psychic if I didn't know better. How else to explain that on the day I was doing my worst she would make my favorite meal of all?

I pulled the glob of dough out of the bowl and placed it on a floured counter and went to work rolling it out. As Bonnie moved around, I started placing small dollops of the dough into the soup. My stomach was rumbling. Bonnie had fed me just after my bout of craziness, but I guess such upheavals work up an appetite. It was just an hour later and already I was ready to eat more.

"That's just great," Bonnie murmured as she moved up behind me and supervised me. She placed a hand on the middle of my back and patted lightly. I leaned back into her. "How you doing, Sook?"

I nodded and smiled a small, tense smile at the dough. The cooking was a comfort, but the terrifying images and feelings were still dogging me. Every time some thought came up--an image of Claudine's knitting needle sticking out of Breandan, or of that little babe Jaime or of Eric extra crispy on my lawn for no reason but my spite--I focused extra hard on cutting uniform-size pieces of dough. After all, it wouldn't do for them to be big and small. They'd never cook through otherwise. Gran had taught me that.

Gran had also been a fighter, and I'd be damned if I'd let the Things' cruelty make me just as bad as them. Screw 'em. Screw 'em all. I'd get better if it killed me.

In not too long, we were sitting at the kitchen table together and I was spooning the spicy, creamy and altogether comforting dish into my mouth. I closed my eyes and just concentrated on the soothing sensation of it sliding down my throat. I took bite after bite and felt myself relax a little. I was still a raw nerve, but it felt like someone had placed a cool, moist blanket over me, dulling the sensations and calming me just a little.

I didn't know if my body could handle another outburst like that, or another emotional bender. Oh, I knew I'd probably have one, but I hoped it wouldn't be today.

I took another sip and sighed happily.

"I'm thinking of making my bedroom light-tight for Eric," I said out of nowhere, my mind wandering. Truthfully, the dulling of the afternoon sky was reminding me that Eric would be up soon, and I didn't know how to handle it, so I thought I'd change the subject. I didn't want to do anything that would make me more upset, so I thought of asking Bonnie to intercept him and ask him to leave without seeing me. But another part of me, a part controlled by my body, ached to be in his arms, even for a few minutes before he left. I needed to... I guess I needed to hear him say he'd be back. Oh Lord. I can feel the tears coming again. See?

This is why I don't want to see him. Because it'll upset me again. Love hardly seems worth it right now.

I blushed.

"Is that so?" Bonnie answered, oblivious to my train of thought. "Seems like any construction right now might not be a great idea."

I looked up at her and sniffed, willing the tears back into my eyes. I nodded. "I know. I'm torn. I hope you don't mind me saying... Oh hell. Excuse my language. It's just... I can barely stand being away from him during the day."

And so being apart tonight, in the little time we have... Well, it made me so upset my body hardly seemed to be able to contain the grief.

"But yesterday... Well, that was too much. And this would be in my bedroom! And what if they couldn't get it done in one day?"

Bonnie nodded at me and patted my hand. "Don't you worry about that, Sookie. There's plenty of time to make this house vampire-friendly. I don't think Eric is going anywhere."

I looked down at my soup and nodded, not really believing it. I felt my teeth start to chatter and watched in horror as a tear fell into my soup.

"Oh Sookie," Bonnie said kindly, but all I heard was pity. "He'll be back tonight. You'll see. He'll be gone for a few hours and then he'll be back."

I nodded again, still in deep doubt. He'd be back tonight, but what about when De Castro comes to town? And I get better? Eventually it'll go back to him disappearing for months at a time. He won't really be mine, even if now I could admit to myself that's what I wanted.

Oh hell.

"Dammit," I said, the heels of my palms burrowing into my eye sockets. "I hate this. I hate vampire politics." _I hate that he's a vampire and I'm a human_, I thought. _I hate that I'm so weak. I hate that it took me getting injured for Eric to act a little like his old self again, like that sweet vampire I fell in love with. I hate that with vampires, it's never simple. It's never just going to be him and me. Someone's always going to get in the way._

Bonnie's hand was clamped over mine tightly now, and she was interrupting my pity party with common sense.

"Well, I don't know about that, Sookie," she said a little dryly. "It's not a great time for him to be going away. But still, if he were human he'd probably have a job and he might have to take some time for it. Three hours out of the week and a half that he's been here with you seems like small potatoes."

I looked up at her.

Oh.

A small sensation started in my chest, a fluttering that eased the knot there. I bit my lip. _Maybe…_

And then I couldn't sit still. I wanted to see him more than anything.

I looked at the clock and smiled. As soon as supper was done, I excused myself to my bedroom and stole into my old jewelry box. I opened it and the little dancing ballerina popped up. This had been my jewelry box since I was 13, when Gran had given me an old pair of opal earrings for my birthday. She'd given me the earrings, which had been a special gift passed down from the women in her family all the way back to England, where they'd come from originally. She'd given me the jewelry box at the same time, and I'd never had cause to replace it. I didn't have much jewelry to write home about.

I pushed aside my bangles and the old watch whose battery had died and felt around at the back corner of the box. My fingers landed on just what I was looking for and I smiled.

Carefully, I pulled the two little dollops of metal wrapped in a little fabric forward and cradled them in my hand. I unfolded them and looked at the little slugs. Carefully, I pulled them to my face and sniffed them. I could still smell the faint scent of Eric and the metallic scent of his blood.

I kissed them and folded them up gingerly again, placing them in my jeans pocket for safekeeping. I closed my hand around them protectively. I couldn't wait for first dark.


	22. Chapter 22: Fait Accompli

A/N: I'm back! Another update, in two weeks after the first. I'm trying to get faster. Thank you for all the comments and alerts and favorites. I really appreciate it and savor it. (Eric's Renfeld, than you for the PM! I got it out as soon as I could, and I'm sorry I'm not always good at responding to emails.) This is the longest chapter to date, but it was a rollicking good time to write. I hope it's a good time to read, too.

A few things: I've heard about people roaming FF and getting rated-M stories flagged and removed out of the blue. I hope it doesn't happen to Healing Blood, but if it does, I'll put it right back up. I have every chapter saved on my computer, so no worries. The only way I can think to keep you abreast of anything like that is if you signed up for an author alert, but maybe there's another way. Anyone know one?

Also, randomly, did you know there's a new Eric Northman skin for Firefox? The beautiful blond is staring half-naked at me from the top of my browser right now. Right, like I'm going to get any work done _now_.

Anyway, I like to give credit where it's due: I had trouble figuring out what Eric should do to Bill, so I called in reinforcements. Most of that deliciously wicked section came straight from the deliciously inventive mind of latbfan. She understands Bill and Eric the way few others do. If you haven't been reading Waking the Dead, you should. It's season one of True Blood from Bill's perspective. I like her Bill. I don't buy Bill as evil, even if he did some despicable things. Plus she's a brilliant writer. Check it out.

And another shout out to my beta m-o-x-i-e-m-o, who not only found all my silly word mistakes, but brainstormed this chapter and helped me order my very disorganized thinking on it. Thank you both!

Now, take a minute to put on your Best of Patsy Cline (required for this chapter), and hunker down and enjoy!

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Bonnie is mine, but not Eric or Sookie, or Bill or Victor or Sandy or anyone else. Sad but true.

* * *

**Chapter 22: Fait Accompli**

**Sookie's POV**

I put the needle on the record and sat back on my haunches. The twinkling, lilting tones came across the old record player in the living room and I closed my eyes and smiled a little.

"This was one of Gran's favorites," I said loud enough for Bonnie to hear over my shoulder. Poor Bonnie. Since calming down from my maudlin fit earlier, I'd been taking her on a forced march down memory lane. I couldn't help it. She reminded me so much of Gran. I just knew if she knew more about Gran, Bonnie would love her, too. I was starting with Gran's favorite: Patsy Cline.

I could see Gran now, her long dark hair falling over her shoulders as she swung me around the living room to this song.

"Worry... Why do I let myself worry?" Gran would sing along, her hips swaying in time to the music, her hands clasped in both of my small ones as she swung me around this little living room. I can't sing worth a lick, but Gran had a beautiful voice. And she was a ham when she wanted to be. She'd hold my hand and spin me around and do a kind of fake-waltz step, pulling her hand from mine to lay it dramatically on her forehead, like a damsel in distress.

It always made me giggle when I was 10 and I'd only been at her house for a short time. I chuckled a little now in fond memory.

Gran never let heartbreak get to her. That's one of the reasons I loved her. I forbade myself to cry again.

I smiled and opened my eyes. Behind me, I saw Bonnie standing there with her hands clasped over her belly, the way she was when she stood on my porch the first time. She smiled a small smile and her eyes smiled a little more when I looked at her.

I stood and swayed my hips up to Bonnie, grabbing her hand the way Gran always did mine. And God bless her, she let me dance her around the living room a little as I hummed to the music. I didn't want to upset her with my singing. The knot that had taken up residence in my chest eased a little, seeing Bonnie smiling and her eyes widening as I whipped her around the room. When the song ended, I looked up to the ceiling.

A warmth bloomed in me, and I absently clutched my middle. I took a deep breath. _Thank you, Gran_, I thought. _For everything_.

Maybe Bonnie was right. Gran was up there looking down on me. And she'd want me to be happy. Maybe she'd even forgive me. I hoped against hope she would. I looked back at Bonnie and she was watching me carefully, her thoughts admiring how nice I looked with a little flush in my cheeks. She was glad I was moving around, and I seemed to be in a better mood.

I thought about what she'd said earlier, that she would have died for her little grand-nephew. In her steely gaze, I saw Gran. She was never one to back down from a fight, and she taught me not to, too. I hoped Gran had gone down fighting, if she had to go down at all.

I realized I still had hold of one of Bonnie's hands and looked down at it. She squeezed my hand and I looked at her eyes. A small smile spread across her face.

"These pictures of your Gran?" Bonnie asked, nodding toward the mantle.

I squeezed her hand back and let it go. The next song had started and the organ and backup singers were preparing Patsy to talk about all her faded loves. I took a shaky breath.

Oh Patsy.

_I miss you, darling, more and more every day, as heaven would miss the stars above. _

I shook my head and squared my shoulders. I thought of Gran and of Bonnie and squared my shoulders. I took the slow, hard steps toward the mantle to pull my favorite picture of Gran down. It was her many years before I'd known her. She was looking over her shoulder, hands grasped in front of her, her feet in classic pageant-queen stance. She was wearing a pretty, shiny dark dress that draped down her back. I can't imagine where she was going in a dress like that in little Bon Temps, but I'd always been fascinated by the picture, and now it did moreso. It spoke to a secret life, a glamorous life unlikely for a lady of her day and her station. She was no southern belle, no lady of prominence, not like old Mrs. Bellefleur. But in this picture, she was happy and radiant. I wondered if maybe this was how Fintan had found her that first day.

I ran my fingers over the old, dusty glass and picked it up to show Bonnie. I wouldn't tell her about her little run-in with a fairy. She probably didn't know they existed, but I wanted her to see Gran in her prime.

When I turned with the picture, though, I fumbled. It almost slipped out of my hand. Suddenly, there was Eric, in his dress pants and a crisp white button-down and blazer that made him look all the paler. His skin glowed against the fabric and little tufts of blond hair poked up out of the top. It was only by the grace of God that I didn't let the frame smash to the ground.

Suddenly I didn't know what to do with myself. The fire was burning a hole in the back of my legs and my breathing seemed to have stopped all on its own. A nauseating wave of guilt passed over me remembering what I'd almost done to him today. I bit my lip. Just like that first night he arrived over a week ago, I wanted to fling myself at him and I wanted him to leave all at once. The knot bound itself tightly over my heart and squeezed the living daylights out of it. I looked out the window and saw the sky was a gloomy dark grey suddenly.

"Oh."

I spun on my heels and placed the picture back on the mantle with both hands, for safe keeping.

I vaguely heard Bonnie make some excuse to get out of the room and I worked hard to block her thoughts. I could barely keep up with my own right now. The only sounds were the quick shuffling of her feet down the hallway, the tinkling of a new song starting up and my pulse beating wildly at my temples.

_If you've got leaving on your mind, tell me now--get it over._

My chest burned and I suddenly sucked in a deep breath, the smoky scent of the fire filling my lungs.

And just like that, Eric was behind me, his strong fingers tracing delicate patterns on my upper arms. I looked down and tried to hold myself together. I took a deep breath and tensed all over. Then I blew it out. I closed my eyes and let my head sag down.

Something about his touch... I'd needed it all day, I realized ravenously.

I turned around and couldn't meet his eyes yet. I let my hands fall and lightly rested them on Eric's waist, and my forehead on his chest. I sucked in a deep breath, inhaling his scent. In my state, I was reduced to sensation, but I vowed that this time--just this once--I wouldn't cry. My world was dark: eyes closed to the world, to what was to come, what I'd almost done this afternoon. But my head filled with Eric anyway, with his dry spiciness, his cool smoothness.

Without meaning to, I began to rub my head against his chest, pressing one cheek and then the other into his shirt, breathing deep as I did it. I was holding on to him just loosely but then I let my fingers slip under the tail of his blazer and up the cool ropes of muscle in his lower back. Pressing the flats of my hands against his back, I drew him to me, rubbing a little closer.

I'd hate to think what I looked like in that moment, rubbing myself all over him. But I couldn't help it. Like everything else about me these days, this behavior was out-of-control and instinctual. I let my fingertips smooth up his muscles to his mid-back and pressed him to me. I took a small step closer to him, just bathing myself in him, trying to suck up every last bit of him, to hold me over. I think I would have climbed him if I'd been able. I just needed to feel him, to know he was here. To know this was real.

_Safe._

He was safe. I was safe. And he... Just right now he was mine.

He would leave me any second. But for now, I could have him. And dear Lord did I want him.

I must have surprised Eric because he stood stock-still while I let my hands roam and my body press against his in a delirious need to map and memorize him. But then I felt his hands smoothing at my fire-warmed hair, his lips tickling my ear, my temple, whatever he could reach. All I could hear now was Patsy urging her man to leave if he was going to. My body rebelled. My back tensed but my heart spasmed. I blinked to keep the tears away.

As Patsy sang, _Don't leave me here in a world, filled with dreams that might have been, _all I could think was, _Stay with me. Don't go._

I breathed in a shaky breath and leaned against him, releasing all my weight against him, feeling my limbs grow floaty and disjointed. I was... I was coming apart from the inside out. And I knew I couldn't ask him to stay just to hold me together. No man could do that. I had to put myself back together. Eric could help some, and he surely had, but it was really my job.

_Hurt me now, get it over. I'll learn to love again._

"Dear one," Eric whispered.

And then he picked me up, just a few inches off the floor. My tippy toes found the tops of his feet and I dangled them there, pressing my arms tight around him under his grasp. I felt a little rumbling against my chest and then Eric dipped his head down and rubbed his cheek against mine, slowly and thoroughly. Quinn might have been the weretiger, but Eric, he was a big ole cat.

I let out a strangled cough-sob thing, trying to keep myself from dissolving right in front of him. I knew he had to go. I wasn't going to be one of those girls who tried to guilt her man into staying. I wasn't going to degrade myself by begging.

His back felt so fine against my fingers I petted him a little, small strokes over and over again between his shoulder blades.

I kissed his chest at eye level, between his gorgeous pecs, just lightly. His fine fabric of his shirt was damp from the tears I was working hard to keep back.

Patsy finished with a flourish and I said a silent thank you to the music gods that her songs were short. I didn't know if my wounded heart could take her pain much longer.

Eric set me back on my feet and leaned in to whisper in my ear. Smelling him was reassuring. Holding him was, too. I wished I could keep this feeling with me all the time.

"Sookie..." he whispered.

I shook my head. It was a small movement but enough for him to notice. I couldn't stand it for him to give me reasons, for him to try to placate me (an old word of the day).

The song went silent and the popping and hissing of the old record filled the room as I sniffed deep to keep the tears from falling. I pulled back just a tiny bit, just enough to glance up at him. Then I looked back down and buttonholes on his fancy shirt. I regretfully moved my hands to the front of him, petting the fabric. I closed my eyes and leaned back into him. His brain, always blessedly silent, soothed me. A new tinkling song started up.

_See the pyramids along the Nile, watch the sunrise on a tropic isle. Just remember, darling, all the while, you belong to me._

I crushed my cheek to his chest and swayed a little, letting myself hold his butt. I coughed out a short laugh. I shook my head and closed my eyes. _Please_, I prayed. _Please_.

Eric's hands ghosted down my back and I felt his lips tickle the crown of my head. He swayed us a little more purposefully with the music. Suddenly, I found myself turning with him. His hand held my lower back so that I was pressed closer to him than was proper, but still not close enough. I thought I heard him murmur something in his ancient tongue but then that tongue was in my ear and I melted a little more. I let out a deep sigh. I could feel myself start to come apart, and I couldn't... I couldn't have it. I couldn't let the last image he had of me be of me falling apart. I had to be strong.

Just as Patsy was admitting she hoped her man would be lonesome and blue without her, too, I made to pull back from Eric, but he wouldn't let me. His hand was steel against my back.

"My Sookie," he whispered into my hair, and spun us around. Almost without my consent, I nodded into his chest and rubbed my face across the soft fabric and hard planes of his chest.

Quietly, so quietly I could hardly hear it, I breathed, "Co-- Uh," I coughed, my voice thick and broken. I took a heavy swallow and tried again. "Come back to me."

**Eric's POV**

I froze. The warbling voice on the recording was whining and begging. I could smash the record now, but Sookie seemed unduly attached to it.

I found myself in an unaccustomed position. I knelt in front of my Bonded and pledged, my Sookie, and tipped her face to look at me. I could not believe how... calm she was this night. But it was an eerie calm, the kind of calm that portends misery or precedes an explosion, in my experience with my Sookie. She seemed defeated somehow. Where the fairy assassins could not do in my beautiful girl my brief business trip seemed to have done the job.

Her eyes were unfocused, vacant. Even as I held her head, she would not meet my eyes. Her eyes sagged and studied the floor beside me. I wished her pliant, but I never wished her broken. This was not my Sookie.

My muscles tensed with rage at what the fucking fairies had done to her, at what that traitor Bill had done to her to make her this afraid for me to leave for a few hours. And another rage built in me. I would not admit it to myself, even dignify it with acknowledgement, but a different rage burned in me, a dark and secret rage I had not felt since my maker had defiled me.

I pulled my Sookie closer to me.

She looked away but wrapped her arms around my neck, tugging me to her divine breasts. I pressed my face in and sucked in one last greedy breath.

Then I pulled back and kissed her neck.

I chuckled into her skin. "Does it feel like I'm done with you yet?" I rasped, pulling her tightly against how hard she'd made me. She gasped and squirmed and stiffened up.

I ran my hands up her back and felt her shiver beneath me. A small, pleased smile flickered across my face.

As I stalked from the house, eager to complete this distasteful business, I found Bonnie on the phone in the kitchen.

"Destroy that record," I growled.

I stepped out into the cool night air and nodded at the vampire in the trees. As I sank into the seats of my Corvette I said, "If I return to find a hair out of place on her head, you will lose yours."

He gave me a goofy grin and I was off to see to my Bill problem.

*******

Bill's house was as shoddy as I recalled, and Bill himself as pathetic.

I circled him in his dark, wood-paneled living room, close enough for discomfort. I studied him.

"You look like shit, Bill." I stepped around him, close enough to brush his shoulder with my arm. He tensed and I knew he could smell Sookie all over me. I smiled a small smile. I circled around behind him and walked slowly, taking my time though I was anxious to complete the night's missions. But that didn't mean I couldn't enjoy myself a little too.

As I came around his other side behind him, I leaned down and placed my nose against his ratty jacket. He was wearing a jacket inside his own house. I rolled my eyes at him.

I took a deep sniff in. He smelled of moss and earth--no doubt from rising in the dirt like a pig. And there was something else, too, something more pungent, along with the acrid stench of the silver excreting through his pores. And a slight odor of fear. Good.

"You smell like shit, too," I said cheerfully, finally turning to face him again. "What is it, Bill? Has the silver poisoning prevented you from showering? But no, that can't be it. I've had silver poisoning. It slowed me down but did nothing to prevent normal standards of hygiene."

I picked a pieces of lent from his jacket and enjoyed the flicker of surprise on the young vampire's face. I allowed myself to smile indulgently. It couldn't hurt him to know I'd enjoy this.

I walked around him again, hearing the sound of my dress shoes on his bare wood floor. Not even any rugs. He was a Neanderthal.

"I really am concerned for your health, you know, Bill," I said, chuckling as I heard his teeth grind. I took note of his hands flexing ever so slightly. Still, he stood for my inspection and didn't speak. He knew his place--at least in this moment.

I tugged at his sleeves and pursed my lips with displeasure. "Does the silver poisoning mean you cannot avail yourself of a decent tailor? These sleeves are at least three inches too long. Really Bill," I chided, turning to face him again and checking my cufflinks. "You look like a child playing dress-up."

I smirked down at him, relishing his unease.

"But then, you were always fond of playing with the big fish--trying to hold your own with Sophie-Ann, thinking you could slip in under my nose and take Sookie out from my territory without me noticing. Without me taking her for myself."

I chuckled at him and adjusted his blazer, noting that the shoulders were too wide on him as well. I shook my head.

"Just like you thought you could flout the orders of your Sheriff for the past week." I gazed at him, curious if he would attempt an excuse or if he would be man enough to own up to his behavior. I placed my hands in my pocket and he carefully lowered his eyes from my face. He was wise to do it, to show his submission to my will. But if he thought that would be all I required, he was sorely mistaken. "Constantly showing up to my Bonded's house, watching it--watching us."

I paused and smiled at him, cocking my head. "You know, I never took you for a voyeur."

I thought of all the times I had fucked her within his line of vision through the windows and the doors of the old farmhouse, how Sookie had completely given herself to me over and over again. In the kitchen, On my lap and then on the table. My fangs ran down and I felt myself begin to harden again. That look in her eyes, determined and then totally surrendered to her love to me. In the living room, in her bedroom. The curtains were always open. She never seemed to notice or mind. She had lived in the country for to long. A satisfied grin spread across my face, and I gazed contentedly at my minion.

But then I flashed to the sound of my Bonded sobbing last night, the sound of her crumpling to the floor and Bill's shell-shocked expression and the expression froze in place. I felt my jaw clench and my eyes tighten.

"You're a smart man, Bill," I said, stepping closer to him, forcing him to take a half step back so he could look up into my face. "You had to know that constantly disobeying my orders would lead to punishment. And you're smart enough to know that in your... delicate condition you can ill-afford the usual punishments."

I smiled at him, thinking of him looking finally dead and covered in bite marks in that Arkansas shack. It would have made my life much easier, imagining that I was finally rid of him. And yet, here he was. Look at him: Grey as a winter sunset, eyes cloudy, reactions slowed to those of a particularly docile human... And yet still my problem. He was a survivor. I'd have to give him that.

"I'm a fair sheriff, wouldn't you say, Bill?" I stepped back and held out my arms to allow him to behold me.

Bill's eyes narrowed but he nodded.

"After all, I saved you from your final death when you were too slow to take the fairies," I smiled at him. "I pay for your rehabilitation. I even allow you to continue to live in your family home, near my lover. I'd say that's more than fair. More than you deserve. Wouldn't you agree?"

I raised an eyebrow and waited. The silence swirled around us.

Bill cleared his throat, one of his tiresome human affectations. "Yes sheriff."

I nodded and stepped toward him again, fingering what I had in my pocket.

"I even allowed you, given your convalescence, the chance to reform your actions with my Bonded before I punished you," I said, fixing him with my gaze. He took another step back. "I figured you were harmless. You are nothing to Sookie anymore. Useless in your current state."

I shrugged at the utter truth of it. And then I smiled as I leaned in to him. He tensed and leaned back. I shook my head, tutting against his ear.

"And then, Bill, you go and ruin everything," I said gently. "I try to be nice, accommodating, even. And you go and approach my Sookie and you cause her _pain_."

I sighed, still leaning in on him. He stepped back again but was caught up short when he hit the back wall, rattling some old, faded photos in their frames.

"Oh, Bill. You've made it impossible for me to be nice to you."

I leaned back and looked him in his eyes, resting a hand above his head. His whole body tensed and just the picture of it--this child-vampire sick and with reflexes no more honed than a 20-year-old human, spoiling for a fight--made me laugh.

"You have complicated my life, Bill, and I hate it when things get complicated," I sighed. "But you've also hurt my Sookie, and that I can't have. You understand, don't you Bill? That I can't just have you roaming around free here, threatening to delay my Bonded's very delicate healing process?"

I watched Bill's jaws clench and looked in his eyes. He was always so tortured, such an immature vampire to wallow in his losses in this way. He was more dead than any vampire I'd ever known. He had made a royal mess of his situation here in Bon Temps. I smiled.

"And I know you're smart enough to understand how much your visit hurt Sookie last night," I added, almost to myself. "I know you loved her. I know you'd hate to cause her any more pain than you already have, isn't that right?"

Bill had the good sense to look down, ashamed. Slower than any vampire should, he nodded.

"Right," I said, patting Bill on the chest and leaning in until I was pressed against him and my mouth was at his ear. "So here's what I'm going to do: We both need you to get well. You want to be back to your usual vampire self, no doubt." I smirked at the thought. "And the sooner you are better, the sooner I can send you on some very important mission far, far away from here--perhaps something associated with your precious database, don't you think? What do you think of South America? It's a lovely place--much open space, lovely people. Or perhaps Asia? We could send you to Siberia and you could experience that Tuvan throat singing you so love first-hand. How would that be?"

I brushed his hair back from his ear.

"So, I have come up with a solution that will help all of us: You will get well quickly, Sookie will be safe from your interference, and I will know where you are at all times." I chuckled when he bristled visibly. His fangs slid down and I felt the slight hiss escape his mouth. So he'd finally caught on to my form of punishment.

I patted his chest soothingly and then reached into my pocket and unhooked the fishing knife, sliding it from its sheath.

I pulled it to my neck and made a quick, deep gash. I grunted in discomfort and then leaned down into Bill, pulling his neck toward me. I felt a little light-headed from the slow release of blood.

Bill was stalk-still and rigid as I'd ever felt him. I pulled his face to my neck more harshly, and in his weakened condition he had no choice but to comply. I felt his lips on the gash as it began to close. I felt myself grow irritable.

I rolled my eyes.

"Come now, Bill. I don't have all night. You take my blood in some quantity: it will be a tonic to your illness, I'll be able to track you. We all win," I huffed. "It is a great honor I do you. My blood is old and powerful. It will no doubt speed your healing process tremendously." Then I lowered my voice.

"Drink."

I smashed his face into my skin and felt the first flick of his tongue on my neck. In no time he had cleaned the blood that had already fallen and was sucking on the closed wound.

"Open it again. You need more."

I felt Bill hesitate, his fangs at my jugular. And then he plunged them and I grunted. I closed my eyes and felt my essence entering his body, bubbling through his veins and calling out to me. I groaned, imagining having Sookie on Bill's porch after I'd dispatched him. I imagined fucking her in the moonlight over and over until she fainted. I moved against him a little. I felt Bill's hand come to my waist.

I smiled against his hair. _Yes_, I thought. _Mine, and mine alone._

*******

"I don't know if I ever got the chance to properly thank you for saving my Sookie," I said, taking a swig from the bottle of TrueBlood Bill brought me. I studied him as he sat and drank his own. He looked pinker and was moving more quickly. I smiled as I felt my blood in him, moving outside my body. He was irritable and angry with me.

He gripped his bottle tighter. If he'd had the strength, he might have broken it. "I didn't do it for you."

I rested my ankle on my knee and leaned back against the couch, running my long arms along it's back. I toyed with the frayed edges of the fabric absently.

"Just the same," I said, watching Bill. "I really do appreciate it. It's the only reason I let you live."

I raised an eyebrow at him.

He scowled at me. "I know."

I nodded jovially and looked around the room.

"You know, I considered equipping this house with silver door knobs and window sashes, effectively trapping you in the house at night to protect Sookie from you." I watched as his eyes widened almost imperceptibly. I smiled broadly. I looked up, reminiscing. "I thought of hiring a witch to cast a spell that robbed you of all your memories of Sookie. But there was the difficulty of finding such a witch on short notice--and there was no guarantee that you wouldn't happen upon Sookie and begin your unhealthy obsession with her all over again. But I figured it was greater torture for you to be so close to your heart's desire while knowing she will never be yours again."

I looked deep into his eyes and watched, curious. It could still be done."

I pulled a hand from behind the couch and inspected my nails, flicking a spec of dirt out from under one of them.

"I thought perhaps regrowing your feet would give you ample time to think about how you've hurt my bonded and about the error of disobeying your sheriff," I smiled, a little giddy at the thought. "Feet take a long time to regrow—all those little bones. I thought of being a little more merciful and simply breaking both your legs. With your silver poisoning, it would only take—what?—a month for you to heal? Enough time to get my Bonded well on the path to recovery.

"I considered perhaps recording Sookie and I's lovemaking and forcing you to watch it over and over again while you were restrained in silver. I'd only make you do that for one night, and perhaps it would free you of this delusion that Sookie might ever--what did you say to me the other night? 'Choose you?'"

I laughed loudly and felt the amusement rock through my body at the absurdity of it.

I knew what Sookie would think of that one. She would never forgive me. But it would be an apt punishment. In the good old days, we would simply have had sex in front of him for the evening. But Sookie could neither be glamoured nor easily convinced of such a plan's merits. I wouldn't tell him that, though. Let him think I record my time with my Bonded. I watched with delight as he squirmed.

"And then there's the tried and true route--simply binding you in silver for a few days. Dr. Ludwig assured me that a week in the silver would only delay your healing by... six or seven months." I smirked.

"Enough," Bill finally said, placing his blood on the table with something akin to force. "There's no need for any of that."

Bill stood and turned away from me, looking out the window toward the cemetery and Sookie's house beyond.

"Perhaps," I allowed. "But I've learned from my Bonded how important honesty is. Don't you agree, Bll?"

I smiled as I saw his neck grow long. I could imagine him looking down with that sad-sack expression he'd so perfected.

"Indeed," he said softly. "I saw what my visit did to her, Eric. I wouldn't wish that on her. I meant what I said before: I would gladly die for her. I gladly suffer the poisoning, knowing that she's safe and alive and her blood still pulses in those veins."

He sighed and I rolled my eyes. I can imagine that I would be nostalgic for Sookie's blood, too if I'd had it and lost it. I remembered the feeling all too clearly. I flashed to all those times I'd seen her and watched with longing as her blood ran through her veins so close to me, in that long, thin, delectable neck.

I shook myself from my reverie. _She's mine_, I thought. _Tonight, I will return to her and I will have her again and again. Forever._

"And I would gladly exile myself if it meant Sookie would heal from what I allowed to happen." He turned back to me, squaring his slight shoulders and locking eyes with mine. "You need not worry about me bothering Sookie any longer. I would protect her from any suffering, even if I were the monster that caused it."

He nodded his head certainly. I rolled my eyes.

"Enough with the dramatics, Bill. Just stay away from her."

"I ask only one thing," Bill said, taking a tentative step toward me. I slouched back in my seat and raised an eyebrow at him. This should be rich. "When I am well, before I leave... for good... I want only to be able to say good-bye to her in person. Alone."

I watched him. My fangs ran down.

"I will not attempt anything with her. You have my word. I wish only to say a proper good-bye."

I paused for a second to consider. Then I laughed, loud and long. _He thought I would be jealous? Of his time with my Bonded? He thought I was threatened by him?_ I laughed harder. _Did he imagine he was so irresistible that Sookie would throw herself at him? After months of uninterrupted sex with me?_

I stood, and drained the rest of my TrueBlood between chuckles.

"Fine," I said, smiling as I sidled up to him. I handed him the empty bottle on the way out his door and added, "Besides, I can track you now."

He stood stock still as I brushed passed him. He seemed _terrified_. Good.

"Do you think you can convince her? To be turned, I mean," he asked as I was almost out the door.

I turned to look at him, shocked. And despite myself, I saw in his eyes the fathomless pain I knew would come with the end of her human life, should she stick with her damnable insistence on humanity. I straightened my back. I did not wish to think of it.

I lowered my head and turned to go.

"We shall see," I said as I stepped out of the house. "You know Sookie."

**Sookie's POV**

Jan. 1, 2006

reborn |rēˈbôrn|

adjective

brought back to life or activity _: the grand concourse stands reborn as a four-star restaurant._

having experienced a complete spiritual change _: a reborn Catholic_

_Not likely_, I huffed. I shook my head and tore off the page.

Jan. 2, 2006

optimistic |ˌäptəˈmistik|

adjective

hopeful and confident about the future _: the optimistic mood of the sixties | he was optimistic about the deal._

• involving an overestimate _: previous estimates may be wildly optimistic._

DERIVATIVES

**optimistically **adverb

I glared. _Rip._

Jan. 3, 2006

catalyst |ˈkatl-ist|

noun

a substance that increases the rate of a chemical reaction without itself undergoing any permanent chemical change.

• figurative a person or thing that precipitates an event _: the governor's speech acted as a catalyst for debate._

ORIGIN early 20th cent.: from **catalysis **, on the pattern of _analyst_.

I thought about it and tried out a sentence. _Bill walking into Merlotte's that night was a catalyst for my descent into the world of vampire shit. Rip._

Jan. 4, 2006

determined |diˈtərmind| |dəˈtərmənd| |diˈtərmənd| |dɪˈtəːmɪnd|

adjective

having made a firm decision and being resolved not to change it : [with infinitive ] _Alice was determined to be heard._

• processing or displaying resolve _: Helen was a determined little girl | a determined effort to reduce inflation._

DERIVATIVES

**determinedly ** adverb

**determinedness **noun

Huh. I guess if I'm determined to get better I can't go changing my mind when things get tough. I ran my finger over the letters and thought on it. _Rip._

Jan. 5, 2006

resilient |riˈzilyənt|

adjective

(of a substance or object) able to recoil or spring back into shape after bending, stretching, or being compressed.

• (of a person or animal) able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions _: the fish are __**resilient to **__most infections._

DERIVATIVES

**resilience **noun

**resiliency **noun

**resiliently **adverb

ORIGIN mid 17th cent.: from Latin _**resilient- 'leaping back,' **_from the verb _**resilire **_(see **resile **).

_Sookie's resilience was stretched to its breaking point by the fairies Lochlan and Neave. _Would I ever bounce back, really--take my former shape again? I hoped so._ Rip._

Jan. 7, 2006

crucible |ˈkroōsəbəl|

noun

a ceramic or metal container in which metals or other substances may be melted or subjected to very high temperatures.

• a place or occasion of severe test or trial _: the crucible of combat._

• a place or situation in which different elements interact to produce something new _: the crucible of the new Romantic movement._

ORIGIN late Middle English : from medieval Latin _**crucibulum 'night lamp, crucible' **_(perhaps originally a lamp hanging in front of a crucifix), from Latin _**crux**_,_** cruc- 'cross.'**_

Severe trial or test. Yep. That sounds about right._ Rip._

Jan. 8, 2006

incorrigible |inˈkôrijəbəl; -ˈkär-|

adjective

(of a person or their tendencies) not able to be corrected, improved, or reformed _: she's an incorrigible flirt._

noun

a person of this type.

DERIVATIVES

**incorrigibility **noun

**incorrigibleness **noun

**incorrigibly **adverb : [as submodifier ] _the incorrigibly macho character of news-gathering operations._

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French, or from Latin _**incorrigibilis**_, from _**in- 'not' **_+ _**corrigibilis**_.

Old English, huh? I glanced at Eric's fine rump hanging on the wall and wondered if this was a word used to describe Eric back in his human days, too--or if it only started to be the right word after he was turned.

I laughed but covered my mouth with my hand, not wanting to draw Bonnie's attention. After Eric left, so did all the energy in my body. I begged off from her and returned to my room and the welcomed comfort of my bed. Bonnie threatened to bring me more chicken and dumplings soon, but she hadn't returned yet, and I was relaxing into the relative silence of my empty room.

I had curled up under the blankets and suddenly remembered the gifts Eric had given me. I'd been so hurt by that stupid recorder, that the last thing I had wanted was anything sweet from him.

This was the first: A word-of-the-day calendar. I glanced up at the calendar on my wall again and smiled. He must have noticed I hadn't gotten one last year for the holidays. I blushed a little and a little flutter filled me, quickly followed by a cold emptiness that made me irritable. He'd stuck a little note on the first page of the calendar:

_As this is your belated Valentine's Day present, start there. --E._

I flipped to Feb. 14 and read:

precious |ˈpre sh əs|

adjective

**1 **(of an object, substance, or resource) of great value; not to be wasted or treated carelessly _: precious works of art | my time is precious._

• greatly loved or treasured by someone _: look after my daughter—she's very __**precious to **__me._

**2 **derogatory affectedly concerned with elegant or refined behavior, language, or manners _: his exaggerated, precious manner._

noun

used as a term of address to a beloved person _: don't be frightened, my precious._

PHRASES

**precious little/few **extremely little or few (used for emphasis) _: police still know precious little about the dead man | you will find precious few atheists on operating tables._

DERIVATIVES

**preciously **adverb

**preciousness **noun

ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French _**precios**_, from Latin _**pretiosus 'of great value,' **_from _**pretium 'price.'**_

Eric had scrawled on the white of the page,_ "To my precious Sookie. Until first dark. E."_

I had flashed hot and cold right away. Hot because he used that word again. _Term of address to a beloved person._ Cold because it reminded me that he thought of me as something to own. And, well… I didn't know if it was hopeless to think he might come back, keep his word, want me—all of that—but it sure seemed that way just then.

I squeezed my eyes together. I tried to push away the little tickle of a thought forming in the back of my mind. I thought of him at the Pyramid of Gizeh, of dancing with him and laughing with him and, later, slapping him and screaming at him to get him out of the hotel as it shook and burned around us. I looked back at the page. _Term of address to a beloved person_. Eric. Was he... precious to me?

Nope. I wasn't going to spend the next however long Eric was gone mooning over him. Even if he was gone all night. Even if he was gone for three months. Even if... I swallowed hard. I couldn't complete the thought.

I kicked off the covers and moved toward the living room.

"Bonnie," I called and saw her stand from the couch, where she had been reading.

My gaze flicked to the window and back to her. I took a deep breath. I had to do something other than think of him.

"Will you come sit with me? Over here, by the window?"

**Eric's POV**

I rotated my head slowly and closed my eyes, letting the wind caress my face. It was still too cool for a human to enjoy the rush, but to me driving with the top down at full speed was the closest to flying one could get in polite human society. And dealing with Bill definitely called for a celebration.

I heard the blues-heavy guitar riffs start on the stereo and turned up the volume. One of my favorite songs. So much better than that maudlin warbling back at Sookie's house. I realized as the electrified chordophone wailed pleasingly that I had been listening to this song over and over again of late. So few lyrics, and yet, I had been drawn to its economy of language and its sentiment. In general I found rock music far too emotional--almost amusingly hyperbolic--but something about the emotions of this song resonated with me.

_Living reflections from a dream... _

I tapped at the steering wheel and nodded my head forward, enjoying how the loud music released into the night like so many thousand orchestras. I moved my fingers on the steering wheel and the powerful steel beast beneath me dutifully turned off the highway. I thought back on that week a year ago, that dreamed-of time, that I could not hold with me despite the feelings that lingered.

_I was her love, she was my queen. _

And then my favorite part--the plaintive cry.

_And now a thousand years between...._

I smiled. These human men could not fathom how long 1,000 years really was. But I could feel it in my bones. As I drove away from my Sookie, I reached inside of myself. There was the humming of my blood inside of that miserable excuse for a vampire. But where I longed to feel my blood calling to me from my Bonded, there was nothing. It was tolerable when we were together. But now, it felt as if my blood had died in her veins at the same time her trust in me did. I had grown accustomed to the sensation of the bond stretching and thinning out as I moved away from her. This, no. I did not enjoy it.

I flicked my wrist and turned into the lot. With another flick of my wrist the steel under me bent to my will, turning and stopping a foot from the back door.

In a moment I was in the back door and standing behind my child. I leaned down and spoke lowly.

"Let us get this over with. Bring me the transplants."

**Sookie's POV**

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Bonnie's hand on my back soothed in large circles. I felt my body grow slack again as I exhaled.

"Once more, dear."

I nodded and sat up straight. I sucked in a deep breath and pulled my shoulders back. I looked out the window and searched the yard for any sign of movement. Nothing. The trees rattled with the cold wind. I hated to admit it, but having someone else there with me made it possible for me to sit here longer. It wasn't near as scary.

"Very good, Sookie."

Bonnie's tone was so encouraging and her brain was telling me that Eric had told her to sit with me like this. Something about a letter, but I didn't get the full story before Bonnie saw something in the distance. The hand on my back stilled.

_The vampire guard!_ Bonnie thought, and I whipped my head around to look at her. Bonnie's face was white.

"What is it Bonnie?"

Her mind was a jumble of surprise and confusion and almost... delirious excitement? Her brain was spitting out random words in her excitement. And then I heard it, both at once, and I almost laughed. I heard the void of a vampire brain out by the trees. And I heard Bonnie think the one word she shouldn't say.

I smiled wide, but thought fast.

"Hey Bonnie, would you mind going to get me that other gift Eric brought for me. And that new bouquet?" I turned to look at her, pleading. "I'll be fine, I promise. If it start thinking I'm going to collapse, I'll move away from the window, I swear."

I turned to look at her with my most sincere face. I was buzzing with excitement myself, but for a different reason. I hadn't heard hide nor hair of him since the attack that left Dawson poisoned. I didn't even know if he had survived.

She looked at me skeptically and I knew she didn't want to leave the window because she wanted to see if those sightings were in fact true.

"Really." I put my hand on hers and squeezed it. I nodded to encourage her a little more. Finally, she stood, still looking past me to the window.

When she was safely down the hall, I turned back around to the window. I figured he would be able to hear me, even if I didn't open the window. But before I could speak, a pale, wide-eyed vampire showed up in front of me, with that signature half-smile on his face.

"Hey there, Miss Sookie."

"Bubba!" I whispered. "Oh, you're OK!" I didn't say it, but I wanted to say, _Thank God you weren't killed by those horrible fairies._ I didn't want to rehash all that tonight, though. I hoped he wouldn't hold it against me. I put my hand on the window and pressed myself closer to him.

His smile grew wide and he shook his head. "Sure am, Miss Sookie."

And then he looked abashed. "I'm real sorry I failed you last month, Miss Sookie. I tried real hard. But I found a cat--you don't keep any cats around here, do you, Miss Sookie?" I shook my head and I got the willies, but tried not to let it show. "And then I got real tired. Which is weird because I can't remember the last time..."

His face screwed up with him trying to recall his human life, I guessed. I could see the frustration on his face--another sign that Bubba wasn't much of a vampire. I felt my heartbeat increase, wondering if he might... snap.

"Bubba. Bubba!" I said, trying to bring him back to the here and now. "None of that matters now. What matters is that you're safe! And you're here. Did Eric send you?"

I pushed down the confusing mixture of hope and hopelessness that rose up in me when I thought of Eric leaving another vampire in his stead. Instead, I focused on the famous, confused face in front of me.

Bubba's face split into a huge grin, with a tiny bit of fang showing. "He sure did, Miss Sookie. I thought he'd never let me come back and see you again after last month. You know I follow his directions real well normally. Don't you, Miss Sookie? You'll tell him that, won't you, next time you see him?"

I smiled at him and worked hard not to acknowledge the tears that were threatening to spill. I sucked in a deep breath and closed my eyes. I nodded really hard and finally, when I felt a little calmer, opened my eyes again. He was just looking at me like a puppy hoping for a treat. I smiled a little wider.

"Sure I will, Bubba."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I felt that familiar sickness rising in me, the knot in my chest burning.

"Why are you sad, Miss Sookie?"

Bubba's voice made me open my eyes. I wiped back my tears with the heel of my hand and shook my head. I sniffed a little and shook my head, trying to deny what I'd just done.

God bless Bubba. He didn't dwell on my display.

"Was that Patsy you were playing earlier?" he asked, mercifully changing the subject. I nodded. "I knew her, you know."

I looked up at him and he had that same confused way-back look on his face, like he was trying to extract something clear from his drug-addled memory.

"I... I met her at a party, I think." A sweet smile transformed his face into the one I had fallen in love with on Saturday afternoons when they used to replay his movies on TV. "She called me The Big Hoss. I called her The Cline."

I laughed a little. I could imagine it.

"I sure do love her music, especially that song... _I go walking, after midnight..._"

And suddenly, my famous protector was softly singing one of my favorite Patsy songs, adding in little hiccups between lines. He swiveled his hips a little and waved his arm in time, eyes closed and lost in the song. His deep voice caressed the word "moonlight" like I'd never heard. I couldn't help it. I fanned myself a little. Living or dead, he was still the King.

I started clapping my palm on my knee and suddenly sitting at the window seemed more like front-row seats than a danger.

"... _I stop ta see a weepin' willa,_" he sang, popping each word and cocking his hips, and letting his voice dip lower, making the words sound scandalous. "_H-hey, A-cryin' on his pilla. Maybe he's a-cryin' foooooor me._"

As the serenade ended, he sure was in rare form. Normally you'd never ask him to sing, for fear he'd hurt himself—or you. But to have him choose to do it, and just for me, made me forget about all the sadness and loss for a minute.

He opened his eyes and realized what he'd done, his eyes growing wide and confused. He looked... dangerous again. His eyes darted back and forth around him, worried. I mimed clapping for him and asked him if he wasn't supposed to hide. I didn't want him to get any more worked up than he was.

Bubba stepped back and looked down for a second.

"Thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah. I'll just be back over here, by the trees." He pointed glumly.

I put my hand on the glass again, wishing I could invite him in, but knowing that Bonnie might not understand. And not sure I wanted to open the door at all.

"I'll tell Eric that you did a great job tonight, Bubba. You did good. You made me happy. See?"

I smiled wide at him and pointed at my face--and for a miracle it was a genuine smile. At that he beamed and, at vampire speed, he was hidden away in the trees again.

Just then, I heard the muffled sound of a box falling onto the little rag rug in front of my couch and turned to see Bonnie staring, stone face at the now empty window. She had the bouquet just barely still in her hands and I rushed to take it from her.

Her hands free, she hazily raised an arm to point out the window.

"That was... I swear I never heard him... Oh my stars, I knew I saw him! I knew I wasn't imagining it!"

I put my arm around her and guided her to the couch.

"Listen here, Bonnie. Here's what you need to know."

**Eric's POV**

"So she's broken. That's what you're telling us? You allowed a vampire to die and she's _still_ broken?"

I steepled my fingers before me, resting my feet on the corner of the desk, careful to appear blithe about the whole thing. I watched Victor curiously. He sat, relaxed, in one of the office chairs, his hands folded gently in his lap. Sandy was a picture of compact tension in the seat next to him, her legs crossed tightly and her arms wound around her midsection. She flashed fang at Victor, wishing, I assumed, as I did, that Victor would complete his nonsense and allow us to finish our work.

I'd already explained this to Victor. He had the report in front of him: The financial and personnel losses of defending Sookie, her prognosis. Dr. Ludwig's report as well as one from the demon therapist on her individual appointments.

"Not at all, Victor," I started lightly, smiling at the shorter vampire. "In fact, she is better by the night. I am seeing to this personally. I have given her my blood and have stayed with her, at great personal inconvenience to me. Really, you have no idea the indignity of staying in that ramshackle farmhouse of hers."

I picked under my nails in disgust, not all of it feigned.

"Besides, as her Bonded as well as her sheriff, it is, as you no doubt know, my _pleasure_ as well as my obligation."

I leered at Victor, knowing he would interpret this to mean that I had complete ownership and control of Sookie. I squared my gaze at him, daring him to challenge my claim on her.

Victor looked away, to Sandy, and leaned back in his chair.

"Yes, yes. Your _pledged_, too, I believe," he smiled a wry smile at me, waving a hand dismissively. "Tell me, does she accept the pledging now? Last I was here, she seemed rather... _put out_ at the gesture. It was almost as if she hadn't known what she was doing."

He locked his gaze with mine, his eyes dancing in delight. If he expected me to squirm he had learned little about me. I chuckled along with him and rose to circle behind him, letting him smell Sookie on me as well.

"Oh, she is very much mine."

I let my fangs run down and ran my tongue over one of them, recalling the taste of her. I patted him on the shoulder roughly and returned to my seat.

Sandy chose then to pipe up. Finally. She was supposed to be the king's trouble-shooter in Louisiana. Why she was allowing Victor to stir up trouble was beyond me.

"Listen, Northman, I would just as soon drain her myself for the difficulty she's caused," she started, her fangs coming out as I willed mine away. "But we have more important matters to attend to."

She produced a few formal papers and slid them across my desk to me. They appeared to be a letter renouncing the king's formal protection as well as a letter of discipline signed by the king himself.

"We need your records of restitution to Clancy's maker, as well as an accounting of how many fae you killed in your pet's name. The king was pleased, at least, that you managed to clean up the whole mess without attracting the attention of the humans. You are to be commended for that."

She stopped speaking, seeming bored by the whole affair, and then added, "That, along with the knowledge that the king now has fae royalty under his sway, are the only reasons you have not been staked for withholding your pet's heritage."

"Really, Eric, you should be more careful," Victor piped up. "You are new here. You know what the humans say--last hired, first... bound in silver." His voice rang with sing-song glee and I felt the urge to behead him. It was wise of me to leave my broadsword at Sookie's house. I would not be able to resist. I studied the dark-haired vampire and knew that it wouldn't be long before I'd have the opportunity.

Instead, I smiled indulgently at him and turned back to Sandy, bowing my head reverently.

"The king is very kind," I said. "As are you."

I shuffled through the papers on my desk until I found the accounting of the amount paid to Clancy's maker. It had made a dent in my stock portfolio.

"If it is any consolation, Clancy died a warrior."

"That's only important to you, Viking," deadpanned Sandy. "Now, you'll take this order renouncing the king's protection to your pet and have her sign it. Get them back to me by first dark. And you'll sign the letter of discipline from the king. I argued that we ought to simply kill your Bonded and make it even. Of course, it wouldn't do--a vampire for a human's life?"

She clucked disapprovingly. Three years ago, I would have agreed. I thought raising a human to vampire level the act of a pathetic vampire. But now, I merely stared at her, waiting for her to complete her thought. To date I have allowed at least two vampires to go to their final deaths for Sookie, and I would protect her from these two as well if need be. When Sandy remained silent, I nodded at her.

"We'll expect a formal letter from you explaining why you kept your pet's heritage secret from our king when you knew it might obligate him to larger wars, and you will explain what you will do differently in the future. We will get back to you in a few nights with the king's order of punishment."

"What do you think?" Victor asked Sandy dreamily, goading me. "One hundred percent of three month's revenue from this little operation you have here? Might that tide the king over? Convince him to drop this whole nasty business?"

Then he turned back to me. "The king is nothing if not modern, forward-thinking," he beamed. "All this business of binding in silver is so pre-Revelation, don't you think, Viking?"

I chuckled and understood his meaning. These were Vegas vamps. I should have known they would be open to a little greasing of the palms, as the humans called it. I called to Pam through our bond and she appeared at the door.

"Bring the Fangtasia check register, please, Pam," I said, my smile and eyes not leaving my guests.

When Pam returned, I took a fountain pen from my desk and wrote out the check. Five minutes and many zeros later, I was standing at the door with my two guests and my child.

"Sandy, always a pleasure," I said, bowing. I glanced at the other vampire. "Victor."

I turned to Pam and signaled for her to bring their parting gifts. She returned with three tall, blond fangbangers, glamoured out of their minds.

"For the road," I said, smiling, holding my hand out to usher them from the room.

Once they were gone, I quickly returned to my desk, gathering my papers and stuffing them in my attaché case. I glanced up and noticed Pam leaning against the doorframe, one ankle crossed over the other. She was smirking at me.

"Who's watching the floor, Pamela?" I asked, closing my laptop and adding it to the bag.

She waved her hand dismissively toward the belly of the bar and rolled her eyes.

"Oh, Thalia's kicked three humans so far tonight--and that's only the ones she got in the head," she drawled. "She's got the whole bar in her thrall. They'll do anything she wants, including buy $10 beers."

She raised an eyebrow.

"What I want to know is..." She looked dreamy and began tapping the pads of each finger against each other, her fangs running down. "When do I get to start planning the _wedding_ _shower_?"

**Sookie's POV**

Oh good gracious. I closed my eyes and felt my face burn hot. I had just slipped open the ribbon on the gold box, the kind you get from fancy department stores. My Gran used to save her old boxes and reuse them every Christmas. I had a dozen of them in my attic. But this one looked new. Inside were a half-dozen pair of lacy and satiny panties in all sorts of colors: black, red, pink, midnight blue, baby blue. Even gold. They were beautiful.

Bonnie was standing behind me. I shifted away from her and then stood, taking the gift and the envelope inside of it with me.

"Um, I'll be back, Bonnie."

I looked up just in time to catch Bonnie trying to avert her eyes. She was flushed, too. Her brain was wondering why he had given me panties. I thought back to that night many days ago when he'd torn my panties off.

I should have known, I though as I walked quickly down the hall, sparing a moment to appreciate how silent and panic-free the trip had become.

I wondered how long ago Eric had gotten me this gift. I wondered why there were so many, and I shivered imagining him destroying each and every one in their turn. Just as quickly as I became excited, my heart dropped with a thunk. _If_ he came back, I reminded myself.

I closed my eyes and tried to remember what Bonnie had told me. _He'll be back at 9._ I nodded to myself, trying to shake myself from the pity party that was starting in my gut. I opened my eyes and willed them away from the alarm clock. I wasn't going to count the minutes. No sir.

Instead, I opened the envelope and the card inside, and out fell a few of those valentine candy hearts. _Be Mine_, they said.

I shook my head. Subtle Eric isn't.

Then I read the note:

_My Dear Sookie,_

_At the rate I'm destroying your clothes you will have a new wardrobe in a month. I am not complaining. Until first dark._

_E_

I pulled out a pair of wine-colored panties. They were skimpier than anything I'd ever worn, and that was saying something. I looked out the window. Well, it was late enough.

"Bonnie, I'm gonna get ready for bed. Could I have some more of that soup now?"

I stripped off my clothes, careful to keep my back to the clock and wiggled into those pretty panties. With Bonnie safely in the kitchen, I walked over to the mirror and took a look at what Eric thought I should wear. Wow. Tiny was right. I twisted around to look at my rear view. Just a little v of lace around my hips. But they had the odd effect of making my waist look dainty in comparison. I suddenly felt sexy.

Now, I'm not a vain girl, but it did my ravaged female pride some good to like what I saw in the mirror. Sure, I could still see the white trails of scars all over my skin. But I could see myself again, not just the scars. I felt a little energized, hopeful despite myself. Today had been a hell of a day, but I suddenly felt better.

I turned to my closet to choose something to sleep in. Glancing back at the mirror and my lace-clad behind, I decided I'd like to feel that silkiness all over my skin. It'd be nice to sleep in that pretty slip Eric bought me. I could feel good about myself whether he was here or not. So I took it from the hook on my closet door and slipped it over my head. I turned to the bathroom and slipped in, refusing to let myself look at the clock. No counting the minutes for Sookie Stackhouse. I'm my own woman. And I'm taking care of myself. Feeling pretty and taking care of myself.

As I flipped on the bathroom light I paused for a second. My fingers traced the delicate chiffon on the slip's cups. Oh. The little pleats and ruffles flounced around my curves, making me look curvier and thinner at once. Wow. Maybe this was why some ladies were willing to spend so much on their clothes. I'd never seen myself like this before.

But it's not proper to think of yourself so much, so I slipped into my nighttime routine, happy to have one that didn't involve going to bed without supper, alone and sobbing. It was a little touch-and-go when I had to explain about Bubba to Bonnie, and tell her never to call him by that other name, and swear her to secrecy. But to have her in my kitchen, making me my favorite meal and thinking well of me did warm me a bit. Absently I started humming, remembering Bubba's impromptu performance. I brushed my hair and pulled it back into a pony while I washed my face. I brushed my teeth and then realized I'd have to do it again after my meal. Oh well. There are worse things.

I smiled at myself, bearing my teeth for inspection. I felt clean. I felt good.

I wandered into the kitchen, where Bonnie was just finishing reheating my chicken and dumplings, dragging the long train of Eric's big white robe behind me. Bubba was out there. Much as I liked him, I didn't want to give him a show.

As I lifted the spoon to my mouth I said, "I think I want to try sitting by the window again before you go. Would that be all right with you?"

Bonnie looked at me curiously for a minute in a way that made me squirm. I blocked her thoughts with all my might. I focused on my attention on my food, which was good enough.

**Eric's POV**

The hum of the engine under me was the only thing that kept me from taking flight right in the middle of the fast lane. As the distance between myself and my Bonded narrowed, I congratulated myself on handling my affairs as smoothly as ever. I glanced at the clock. Only 8:30. I would be back before the appointed time, and Sookie would be pleased. She would be safe. Bonnie would leave and I could take her. Repeatedly.

"_Hey, I love that little lady, I got to be her fool_," came from the stereo and I laughed loud and long into the cool Louisiana night. I turned it up and allowed the words to flow over me.

_Ain't no other like my baby, I can break the golden rule _

_'Cause I get down on my knees, Oh, I pray that love won't die _

_And if I always try to please, I don't know the reason why, yeah _

_If she would come back, Only stay with me _

_Every little bit, every little bit every little bit--every little bit, every little bit, every little bit of my love... I give to you girl._

I felt myself harden and laughed again, absorbing the heady excitement that comes from being nearer my Bonded. If I didn't know better I'd think the bond had reinvigorated itself. I pressed the button that moved the track forward to hear the driving electrified guitar of the song that most reminded me of what I was going to do with my Bonded.

_Way, way down inside, honey, you need me. I'm gonna give you my love. Every inch of my love._

_Oh yes, my Sookie,_ I thought as I narrowed my eyes. _I'm coming for you. I'm coming to... get you.  
_

I slammed on the gas and laughed as the wind rushed down over my face, throwing my hair out behind me.

**Sookie's POV**

I twirled my ponytail around my fingers in a way I did when I was nervous. Sitting at the window sure made me nervous but I made myself stop, smoothing my hand down the length of it and examining my split ends. I wondered if Bonnie would trim my hair if I asked her.

I shifted in my seat in the living room. It wasn't so far from the front door, where I'd collapsed just a week and a few days ago, unable to function. And look at me now: Dressed, wearing underpants—hell, even sexy lingerie!—even almost smiling with good cheer, my face washed, my physical wounds healed and a belly full of my favorite foods.

I wrapped myself tighter in Eric's soft robe and looked out the window to wave at Bubba, wherever he was.

I pulled the band from my hair and allowed the freedom of my hair to send a little shiver over me. I smiled and massaged my fingers into my scalp. I sighed.

"Oh, well you look just lovely, Sookie," Bonnie soothed as she walked up behind me and plopped down in the chair next to me. She handed me the Chap Stick I asked for. It was my favorite. It smelled great, but, even better, is had a slight tint to it. The fashion magazines called it "your lips but better," your lips' natural flush slightly pumped up without being makeup.

She ran her fingers through my hair, getting rid of tangles and rubbing my shoulders where the hair fell. I leaned back into her and she patted my shoulder.

"Don't worry, dear, your vampire will be back soon enough. You look lovely. I'm sure he'll be pleased."

I wanted to roll my eyes and had started formulating the words to argue that I didn't care when or if he came back tonight. I was trying to get better, doing what my doctor asked.

"There, there, Sookie," she said, I guess because she noticed my shoulders tense up. "It's OK to miss him, and be happy he's coming back. It's already 8:30. It's OK to get excited to see him."

"But I'm..."

And then I looked down at myself and swore under my breath.

Dammit, I'd done it again! I'd prettied myself up for him! I'd put on those panties he got me and shimmied into this slip and I was wearing his robe! And I was putting on makeup for him. I'd tricked myself--again!

I turned to her in shock but she wasn't looking at me anymore.

"_Fait accompli_," Bonnie said, trying to get the words right. Darned if I knew how to say it right.

My brain was locked down at my own stupidity.

"What?"

"It's the entry for today," Bonnie said, holding up a few of the sheets on the calendar. "_Fait accompli_, it's French for 'a thing that has been done or decided and cannot be altered.' Kinda like, you know, _que sera sera_. A done deal, quit fighting it, all that."

Bonnie was musing to herself about the phrase now, but I was still dumbfounded, and then I heard tires on the gravel and I couldn't help it. I jumped up, holding onto the window frame for support. And just like that, my heart jumped and did a little shimmy and shake all of its own as I watched Eric's Corvette tear down the drive and stop at the front door.

I don't know if he flew out of the car or if he even turned off his engine, but he was suddenly at the front door and Bonnie was opening it. I clung to the wall between the window and the door until it was closed, and then Eric was standing there right in front of me, looking windblown and tall, with a fire burning in his eyes.

I breathed in tiny gasps, the air around us suddenly thick and charged. I looked in his eyes. He was actually here. _He came back._ My heart jumped and the knot that had been there since this horrible afternoon split and melted. I wanted to jump up in his arms. I wanted to melt into him. I wanted to hit him for leaving in the first place. I felt stupid, giddy happiness just to be near him again. I placed a hand on his chest.

Eric's intent gaze broke and a large grin spread across his face, his eyes turning wicked in a way that I'd grown to love.

He reached out a hand and cupped it behind my neck, turning my head up further to meet him. He laughed softly, leaning in on me. I could feel a low vibration in his chest.

"Leave," he barked and I flinched. He smiled at me and then looked over his shoulder.

"Y-yes," I heard Bonnie squeak. I heard footsteps almost running back to the kitchen and the door slam.

He laughed and looked me up and down ravenously. "You honor me."

And then his mouth crashed down on me and I opened mine as wide as I could, nibbling and biting and sucking his tongue until I was dizzy. I wrapped my arms around him tight and dug my nails into his back. He growled and nipped at my jaw and earlobe and finally to that spot behind my ear. I was sobbing into his mouth.

"My Sookie," he said, lifting me and running his hand up under my slip, feeling my panties--his panties, the ones he got for me. And then he started mutter in his old language, punctuating his tirade with kisses and thrusts of his hips, until I was writhing and sobbing under him. Finally, I felt a sharp pain at my hip and felt Eric shift my weight.

His hand came up and showed me the little, wet scrap of fabric that had been my panties.

He laughed loud and boisterously. He raised one eyebrow. "They matched. Oh well."

And just like that, he tossed them over one shoulder and me over the other.

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A/N:** Oh no she di'n't. Oh, yes I did!

Just want to give credit where it's due: The dictionary definitions come from the nifty little dictionary on my Mac and from my Oxford American Dictionary. I don't own Patsy Cline's songbook or Led Zeppelin's. Come _on_. You knew Eric had to be a Led Zeppelin fan, right?

Comment, comment, comment! It's like fae-laced blood to a Viking vampire. I need it, my precious….


	23. Chapter 23: Maker, Monk and Mine

**A/N:** Sorry for the fake-out, all and the duplicate alert. I forgot to do some editing before posting it. This chapter was so much fun to write. I hope you love it as much as I loved writing it.

A few quick pieces of housekeeping: First, thanks again to my awesome beta m-o-x-I-e-m-o. She caught some awkward sentences and made it flow better. She rocks. All remaining mistakes are my own.

Also, for those of you who are squeamish about this kind of thing, I'll let you know that there's discussion of gay male relationships in this chapter. If it's not your bag, you might want to skip it. I personally find it delicious. Oh yes.

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Disclaimer:** Not mine.

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Chapter 23: Maker, Monk and Mine**

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**Eric's POV**

_She smells like me._

My mind registered it even before I was fully through the door of the old farmhouse. My nostrils flared to take in the whole of it, honing in on it before I even rounded the corner and saw her: my scent radiating off her warm skin, nestled between her glorious breasts, pressed into the creases of her neck and elbows.. I rounded past the door and found her pressed against the wall, her heart beating a staccato rhythm against her ribs, her breath thick and fast. It took my thousand years of restraint to keep myself from taking her against the wall with the aide Bonita watching.

I growled quietly and flexed my hands, the muscles in my back straining to hold me back from pressing myself against her immediately. My eyes swept her. My fangs ran down violently.

I raked my eyes over her, from her loose, tumbling waves to her bare neck to my white robe, to where it opened to reveal the soft organza cups of the negligee I had given her. The material was not quite opaque and her rosy nipples were dark protrusions against the fabric. _Beautiful. Perfect. Mine._

I swallowed the saliva in my throat and rumbled with pleasure. The frightened-colt look in her eyes warned me to be steady.

I leaned toward her--my woman--and captured her head in my palm, tilting her face up, exposing her surprised, dilated eyes and her soft, pale neck to my hungry gaze. I chuckled and growled too low to hear. Sookie's warm hand burned into my chest.

Vaguely, I heard the dry shuffling of the aide Bonita behind me. I desired a witness to Sookie's yielding to me but she wouldn't do. Sookie would be displeased. And more than anything else, I wanted her pleasure.

"Leave," I ordered the aide, my eyes stead on my beloved. Sookie flinched, but I held her head and her eyes. She would not escape me. The aide, however, was wise to depart in earnest, slamming the door behind her. I allowed a chuckle to escape my lips.

For a second, the only sound was Sookie's labored breathing. I scanned my Sookie again and realized with glee that she had been sitting at the window. She was getting better. She was waiting for me.

In my gift. In my robe. In my scent. _Mine_.

"You honor me," I breathed, my muscles clutching for restraint. Just then I inhaled, to smell all of Sookie and caught the deep, buttery scent of her arousal. My restraint snapped.

I lunged, and Sookie reached up to meet me.

The second our lips touched and our bodies met, deep satisfaction swept me. I fell into her, plunging my tongue past her lips, groaning at her insistent sucking. This was right. My woman rubbing herself all over me, marking both of us, and then yielding to me.

When I pulled back, mindful of her bothersome need to breathe, Sookie sobbed against my neck,uttering a broken, relieved sound promising more cries of pleasure later. The feel of her hot breath blowing against me made me harder. I clutched her.

"My Sookie," I groaned, thrilled when her only response was to raise her legs to wrap around me, to pull me into her hot, wet center. I shivered as her heat penetrated through my slacks. Gods, this woman... _Ungh. Fuck._

"Mine," I growled, so high from her scent, her touch, her need, that I lapsed into my old language. I thrust against her again and she yelped in the most seductive way.

"Whether you admit it or not."

I sucked her lips against mine, nipping lightly, drawing blood and quickly lapping it away. _Mine. Mine._ I laughed. _Mine._ A humming energy vibrated through my being, rumbling in my chest. Sookie's breath was coming faster now, in short bursts. I rocked against her willing center, coaxing a few moans from her, and laughed again. I let my hands explore what was mine, down the length of her side and over her hips, under the slip. I held her here, my palm supporting her weight, massaging her bottom.

"Mine," I whispered in Old Norsk, nipping her earlobe and just behind it where I knew she was most sensitive. "Bonded or not. Knife or not." I lavished the spot with tiny kisses and suckling, reveling in her shivers and how she moved her body against me, succumbing.

A long, deep moan rose from her throat, vibrating into me from belly to ear, where her breath washed over me in hot little bursts. "More," she groaned.

"I'm going to fuck you like you're mine. I'm going to fuck that sweet, hot pussy of yours until you beg me for more." I grunted and shoved my cock against her wet and willing center. "I'm going to fuck you until you beg me to stop." More thrusting, more panting and moaning from my woman, her hands curling and clawing at my back, as if she were trying to climb me. My words were coming in a rush of Old Norsk and I struggled not to fuck her against the wall. All it would take would be a quick movement of my hand, a quick release of my erection from the confines of my pants. It would take even less to bite her right here and now, and leave a mark because I could. Because she was mine.

"I'm going to fuck that hot, perfect little cunt of yours until you beg me to turn you, until you give me every last drop of you, until you beg me to take what is mine. Until you beg me to make you mine forever."

Just like that, my fingers found her secret present, the tiny and lacy panties under her slip. I did not seek them. I sought only her wet and swollen pussy. But the panties were there and I was not disappointed. Instead, my dead heart surged. _Mine_. My gift. My Sookie. _Fuck_. I moaned against her and tore the gift from her soft, shivering skin. She moved against me, lunging at me as she could and finding an angle that pleased her, moaning in happiness. Yes. Happiness. Not contentment. Not resignation. Not appreciation.

I grinned widely as I held up the wisp of fabric, sniffing at the evidence of her joy. A rumble sounded deep in my chest.

"They match. Oh well," I smiled merrily at her. Sookie's cheeks reddened even more and I could not resist taking another kiss. But there were other cheeks, and other things I desired of my Bonded. And they were mine for the taking this night. I had conquered both Bill and my masters' demands.

So I flung the panties over one shoulder and my woman over the other. Because I could, and because they were the spoils of the evening's skirmishes, I let out a victory cry.

My cry echoed through the house, drowning out Sookie's surprised yelp.

It was so quick there was no time for her to protest. And if she had the desire, I did not note it. I was too distracted by her warm hip rubbing against the skin of my cheek.

I could not resist nuzzling into it and biting, just a little, before dropping her on the bed.

She landed face down and before she could right herself I laid on top of her, nuzzling my face into first one buttock and then the other.

"Eric!" my woman cried, and I sensed some exasperation. I laughed loud.

I pulled myself up until my lips were at Sookie's ear.

"Admit it," I purred at her, as I delighted in her squirming beneath me. I tugged off the robe before she could protest and ran my hand proprietarily over her side and up to her breast, tucked under her. "You did all this for my benefit."

I laughed as she stiffened and fought against me.

"You missed me." I smiled widely against her neck, nipping and kissing. "You love me," I taunted, my voice lilting a little in a way I knew was guaranteed to aggravate her. She thrashed against me and I laughed._ Admit that you are mine and no one else's, _I thought.

She huffed out in frustration. "Ugh. Eric, you big caveman," she protested. "Let me up!" She pushed up against me, trying to free herself from my weight but I just lay there atop her, enjoying how she was moving against me. I closed my eyes and sighed. She always did have a fine way of arousing me, not the least of which being her fiery obstinance. When I opened my eyes she was staring stakes at me. Her eyes narrowed and flashed with worry.

I chuckled in her ear and kissed her neck hard, deciding to have a little fun with her. The next time she wiggled up against me, I slipped my hand under her and parted her with my fingers. I growled. _So wet. Mine._

"My dear Sookie," I teased, looking forward to her adorable petulance. I moved my hand in her and her breath caught. She was struggling to maintain her irritation and I watched as it faltered. "I return and you are wearing my robe..." I swirled my fingers against her taut nub.

"...my gift..." Again, and she bucked, her eyes closing.

"... and my _scent_..." I pressed inside her for a moment and her hips flew back, sending her body in to firm contact with my cock. She moaned out in pure pleasure, her head thrown back and eyes closed.

Quietly, I whispered in her ear, my own voice growing hoarse, "You had to know, dear one..." I growled.

"...that something like that," I nipped at her ear as my fingers tickled her more insistently, "would come back and..." She was moaning and grinding herself down onto me, pressing the whole of her body against me, not shying away, no longer angry.

I removed my fingers and kissed her cheekbone, bent back as it was toward me, to slide back down her body. Iflipped up the negligible hem of her chemise, revealing her perfect, round buttocks.

I slid my wet fingers back between her legs and she opened herself to me with a shuddering moan. "... Bite you in the ass."

"Oh," she panted, her eyes hooded as she watched coyly from over her shoulder, and a little furrow formed in her brow as she tried to recall exactly why she was upset with me. Very good. Weakly, she added, "D-don't you dare..."

Oh, but I did.

I licked and teased her flesh without fangs, eyebrow raised, exploring every inch of her. She squirmed away from my mouth and toward my pressing fingers, groaning louder, close to finally giving me everything. _Yes. Mine._ She looked at me and her breathing heaved. I bared my fangs. The heat that wafted over me in response triggered a loud growl immediately followed by a sharp, fast strike of my fangs into the soft flesh of her bottom. The sip of her blood made me moan and her squeal. I pressed my fingers into her in time to feel her body grip me tightly and to feel the spring coiled inside her pop.

"Eric!" she yelped. I palmed her bottom with relish, moving my fingers in and out of her with greater demand, kissing her and letting my hand roam up her back, under the silky slip. I pulled her hips against my hand until I felt her clench and release again a few minutes later, crying out in relief.

I flipped her over. I was far from done with her.

I was on her again, this time licking and sucking her still too-prominent (but lovely, beautiful) hipbones and then the valley between them. My chin scratched along her golden curls and my tongue tasted the sweat that had begun to bead there. I sucked greedily at the heady scent of her and me and her powerful arousal. I could not wait to part her legs, to run my tongue between her lips, to taste her, to bathe in her.

I told her all this with my eyes and smiled in a way that I knew incited her. Then I held her gaze as I followed through on my promise. I pulled her hips tighter to me and raised her smooth legs over my shoulders. Sookie moaned and arched her back, swiveling her hips on me. So sweet. So wet and engorged. So perfect. I moaned and opened my mouth widely, taking in all of her, plunging my tongue into her decadent taste. She shivered.

"All mine," I muttered against her slick flesh and caught her taut bundle of nerves between my lips, then between my teeth, orchestrating my movements with her moans. Her eyes were surprised and desperate and unguarded in the way only I could elicit I loved it. I grabbed her by her hips and pulled her forward, holding her up at an angle that pleased me, that would please her. Her soft thighs draped over my shoulders and I was surrounded by the heady scent of her, her taste, her blood, just below the surface, rushing around me. _Delicious. Perfect. Fuck. Mine. _I thrust my hips into the mattress.

I was lost in her, suckling her. My Sookie moaned.

"Eric," she rasped, bucking against me insistently. "Please. I... I can't take any more. I need you inside me. Now."

_Done,_ I thought.

I would spend any amount of time defending myself to my masters, endure any level of invasion into my personal life if this--she--were my reward, I thought with delight: _My woman is begging for me_._ I never doubted she would._

I began tearing at my zipper and belt. I was still fully clothed and bit into my cufflink to begin to remove it, as well. Sookie caught on and took my arm, fiddling with the little link until it came open. I sunk back into her pussy with my mouth, stilling her hands on my wrist and causing her to moan so deeply I could feel it vibrate against my forehead.

I flew up her body, keeping her legs over my shoulders and sunk myself into her.

We both groaned in relief. Gods, _home_. _So right_.

Her eyes squeezed shut and her face flushed, her hair slick against her forehead. She was the sexiest thing I had ever seen. _The best of all of them. Mine._ I leaned down and attacked her with my mouth, sucking her tongue into my mouth while she tore at my shirt, ridding me of it. To my great pleasure, this position—with legs bent deeply against my chest—my next thrust reached deep inside her. I growled in satisfaction. Her head shot back . I smiled against her chin and nipped at her, pulling her hips down on me hard and grinding myself against her.

_Mine. Forever, mine._

"Love," I breathed, nearly lost in the sensation of her body, in her warmth and wetness, in her scent mingled with mine, in her sweat, and most of all, in her blood. "Look at me."

I needed her. Oh, by the gods, I needed her inside me, I needed _this_ but also more than this. I needed everything, and my need shattered my defenses and left me bare before her. I moved against her roughly, seeking her eyes. Before I could destroy it, I forced myself to tear the slip over Sookie's head. I could buy another. But I wanted her in this one. Over and over again.

I cradled her neck with my fingers as my thumb ran over her flushed cheek. She was so beautiful. I could not want her any way other than this. My heart... I shuddered with the thought of her blood slowing and cooling, of her one day leaving me. Of her expiring. No. I would not permit the thought--not when I had her here, when I was having her, when she was twisting herself and thrashing against me and grunting with every hard thrust, taking everything I had and still demanding more with her eyes. She turned her face toward my hand and bit at my thumb. I growled.

"My Sookie," I grunted, driving us higher, faster.

"E-E-Eric," she sobbed, tugging at my arm, twisting her hips, struggling for breaths deep enough to accommodate our frenzied motions. Her heart beat powerfully. I lowered my head to her breast, kissing her chest in time with the thudding of her blood, silently thanking whatever gods yet existed for my Sookie's safety, survival--for her heart.

"Oh, my God, Eric!" Sookie panted as I felt her tense. I moved both hands to her hips, moving her faster on me, making it last, making her pleasure more intense. Ruining her. Ruining her for any other man. Any other vampire. Anyone but me. MINE.

I leaned back from her and watched as her whole body froze but for the heaving of her chest, her breasts vibrating with my fast, hard strokes. Her eyes glazed and her hand gripped mine on her hip. Her mouth fell open and a new blush painted her.

Then, the miracle: The tugging, the pulling of her pussy, the intense waves of her orgasm seeking to pull me into her, to keep me there. But I would not acquiesce. She was mine and I would give her more than she could ever imagine. I would give her everything. I would give her greater pleasure than anyone else could.

The thumb of my other hand snaked down between us and pressed down on her nub.

"Guhhhhhhh," she sobbed and her orgasm extended, sparking a new one and pulling on me, dragging me into her like a gravitational force, like the power of sunlight, weakening me and controlling me all at once. Her eyes locked on mine and I pressed into her one last time, overcome by her beauty, by her power. By her. But just her. My Sookie.

"Fuck!" I cried out in Old Norsk. I was lost. I was _hers_. I collapsed against her, and as my release finally claimed me my mouth sought out her perfect breast and I latched on with my fangs, drawing deeply. I would give her anything. I would give up my position. I would sell off all my businesses, my stocks, liquidate all my investments. I would move into this old farmhouse, and learn to cook her human food and make love to her every night. I would be her truly humble vampire servant. I was hers. She was mine.

I lay against her for a long moment, feeling utterly spent and revealed to this warm human. We vibrated in aftershocks, our bodies speaking to one another. I rested my head on her chest and lazily licked the marks left by my fangs, stretching my tongue to lave her nipple as well. Her breast was pink and mottled by flush, and I could see that where I bit down so hard would bear a bruise tomorrow. Sookie hardly seemed to mind. She was healed. She was more magnificent than ever. .

Though I resented the movement, I propped myself up to release her legs from their position. She groaned stiffly as her body released to a more natural shape. I ran my hand over her side, her hips, her legs, languorously massaging the blood back into them. Mmm... Sookie's blood. I wished her to be well, was all I could think in my hazy contentedness. I rumbled against her as I rubbed my face into her chest.

Weakly, her arms moved around me, petting my back in the reassuring, affectionate way to which I had grown so attached. She lifted her head and kissed my temple, my hair. I smiled against her, and kissed her nipple softly.

"My Sookie," I mumbled into her skin, drunk off her blood and her sex. "My Sookie." I rubbed my forehead against her and licked the sweat from the valley between her breasts before lavishing attention on her other breast. "So beautiful. Perfect."

"Baby," she cooed, patting my back half-heartedly. I merely reveled in the bliss I found with her, ignoring the childish pet name. Indeed, almost welcoming it. But only from her. I heard her yawn into my hair. I knew I would lose her soon to sleep and needed a little more time with her.

Regretfully, I pulled out of her, moving down swiftly to place a chaste kiss on her well-loved mound. It took more than a little willpower not to settle myself there, to lick her and suckle her and continue to love her, to mend any damage I may have done her in my passion. But even that small caress of my lips made her shudder sensitively and I knew she needed rest. I rose and curled my body to her, thoroughly satisfied.

I pulled her back against me and she sighed, and opened her eyes dreamily. She looked up at me and placed a hand on my cheek. If I didn't know better, I would think she was awed. I leaned down and kissed her gently, feeling a well of reverence rise in me. I held her softly, as if she might break, and ghosted my fingers along her side.

She looked at me shyly and I smiled. This strange human. To submit utterly to me, to brazenly demand all of me as her body had, and now to look at me and be shy. An enigma. I kissed her again, placing gentle caresses on her eyelids and temple, cheek, earlobe, jaw then back up to her lips. She kissed me softly and when I pulled back to gaze on her beautiful face again, her eyes were full of unshed tears.

I glared for a moment, irritated, but arranged my features impassively, waiting to discover what had alarmed her. She caressed my face again and looked into my eyes searchingly. She swallowed and breathed in deeply.

"You came back," she whispered, almost as if to herself. "You came back to me."

I watched her for another minute as disbelief and wonder, fear and tenderness crept across her features. I favored her with a small smile and took her hand from my face. I kissed her palm, her knuckles and then her eyelids, savoring the taste of the tears as they overflowed. I licked up the few I had missed.

When she looked up again and blinked, I saw something release in her. Some fear, some dread she had been holding. She relaxed almost imperceptibly into my arms and that odd sensation in my chest pushed against my ribs, as if it were too big for my body to contain it.

"Of course, my lover," I said quietly, as I smoothed a tangle of hair off her face. "Always," I added, with conviction.

Still, she looked at me, uncertain, untrusting. I leaned in and pressed my face to her ear, whispering my prayer. "Believe it."

**Sookie's POV**

Believe it. Believe _him_?

I looked in his eyes when he pulled back and smiled down at me, holding my face in his big palm. He looked as relaxed as I'd ever seen him and... happy. Giddy almost, but I didn't think a vampire could be giddy.

I bit my lip and ran my hand through the dark blond hair on his chest. I glanced up and he was watching me--not territorially as he sometimes did, but relaxed and curious. He smelled so good I had to lean in and bury my nose in his chest hair. I sighed against him. I didn't have the energy to worry about whether I should believe him or not. I wrapped my arms around him, holding him close, just glad that he was back. He came back. He came back to me. He came back _for_ me. Maybe he _was_ mine.

Whatever tension I'd been holding released a little inside me and I slumped against him, snuggling close. I was getting spoiled, having him here every night, and maybe a part of me knew it. But a bigger part of me didn't care.

"Eric," I started, pausing to wonder if I was going to ruin a perfectly good moment. "Why did you leave me a recording instead of telling me that you were leaving face to face?" I ran my fingers through his happy trail leading south and studied it with sudden fascination. My face grew hot and I couldn't bear to look at him after what I'd almost done.

Thank goodness he couldn't feel my emotions through the bond. He just chuckled. "Did you not like my message? I thought it quite witty to leave an imprint of my voice to comfort you during the day."

He leaned back from me, trying to see my face. "Did it not have that effect on you?"

I can't say I ever remember Eric asking me how what he did had effected me. I blinked and studied him.

I wanted to say this tactfully as I could. I didn't want to seem to be accusing him. But of course I was.

I smoothed my hands down his ribs, enjoying every bulge of muscle in his lean side, my eyes following my hand as it went.

"Well, it was nice to hear your voice," I said, remembering how he'd practically leered at me through the machine. "But I wished you'd told me in person. I had a real hard day." My voice cracked and I tried to cover it up with a little cough. I started breathing deep, trying to hold back that well of feelings that were trying to bubble up. I'd be damned if I fell apart again. I felt too good, too relaxed to let myself ruin it.

Suddenly I turned and looked up at him, remembering standing in his room, staring daggers down at that little area where I knew he rested. I put my hands on either side of his face and pulled his face to mine, kissing him hard and long. I'd been so scared I'd never see him again, I was ready to do the worst thing imaginable.

And for what? He came back. He was here now. He was holding me close. I'd be surprised if I didn't have bruises in the morning from how tight he'd held me. I started moving on him and making little happy sounds when I felt his fangs click down. Eric moved me on top of him, palming my butt in time with the movement of his tongue. I sighed into him.

He didn't question me, he just started rubbing up against me again. I flushed and my skin prickled with the memory. I'd never tell him—I wouldn't want to encourage that kind of caveman behavior—but I'd be lying if I didn't say that my temperature went up by about 10 degrees the moment he grabbed me and flung me over his shoulder. Sakes alive, but he was… Oh.

And while I thought my poor ravaged body maybe couldn't take anymore, it turned out it could. I pulled myself onto him and Eric let me lead the charge, slowly at first but then he moved me faster on him as my leg strength gave out. After not too long I was almost too spent to form words, let alone keep my eyes open. I'd talk to him more later. For now, I....

*******

I could feel myself twitch and felt that familiar crick in my neck. Gran was on the porch swing, teaching me how to knit one and purl one, and then... there was blood. There was blood _everywhere_. Nausea rose in my throat. I felt myself shake.

Before I could scream, something cool and hard and insistent pressed into me, surrounded me, folded me up inside it. Soft and wet on my throat. I felt closed in and tried to fight it off, tried to get out of that kitchen, away from the blood, away from Tina's lifeless body next to Gran's, away from the pile of bodies stacking up in my kitchen: Dawson, Claudine, Lafayette, Debbie Pelt...

Oh... "Oh!" I rasped myself awake, but instead of the crushing normalcy of my room, I smelled and felt Eric all around me. I tried to wrench my arm away, still not quite sure I was safe, not quite sure that those bodies weren't following me...

"No," he said, in a low, steady voice so commanding that I stopped fighting him and breathed in short bursts. Damned if his scent didn't calm me. "None of that."

I looked around wildly. The alarm clock, blazing 1:17 a.m., the little bedside lamp, the window, Eric's butt staring at me from that calendar. I coughed and tried to catch my breath, turning my head till it reached Eric's big old shoulder. I buried my nose in it and tried to steady my breathing, squeezing my eyes shut to try to get rid of the image.

But that only brought them back in a rush more violent than before. Gran... Tina... Claudine... Clancy… Debbie... Dawson... Claudine's little baby.... And now a new one, a little three month old baby that wasn't moving.... My chest burned with acid shame. Helpless.

My eyes shot open and this time all I could see was a pair of dark blue eyes boring down on me. He'd twisted me around so I was facing him and he held my face with his hand, running his knuckles along my cheekbone. "Come back to me, Sookie."

I gasped in a painful breath and concentrated on his eyes--not the eyes of anyone else, real or imagined. Just Eric's. The one man who'd never promised--threatened--to die for me. The one man who had protected me and survived.

I clutched at his bare chest, my arms held tightly between us. Right then,I decided: if there was one thing I'd ask of anyone who loved me in the future, it was that they would live—that they wouldn't give up their lives for me, that they would not condemn me to the purgatory of having to live in their place.

"Don't ever die for me," I said, and my voice sounded rough, angry and more pleading than I'd like to admit. I stared into his eyes, willing him to understand. "Promise me."

Eric's serious, concerned face twitched infinitesimally but then split into a wide smile and he threw his head back and laughed. Then he lowered his face to mine, rubbing his nose across the planes of my cheek, nose and temple before settling at my ear.

"Oh dear one," he said, so amused that I almost could have decked him. "I have no intention of dying, for you or anyone else."

I'd asked for it, but it still felt like a punch to the gut. _Well, don't strain yourself, there, buddy_, I thought. Still, my body warred between relief and gratitude for his arrogant determination to survive no matter the cost on the one hand, and hurt and offense that he would not consider it, that I was like "anyone else," on the other.

I froze up, confused, and Eric just held me close, hugging me to him and breathing in my neck. But then he pulled back and ran his fingers through my hair, his look minutely more serious. I studied him, placing a hand on his chest. Just the thought of adding him to that monstrous pile of dead bodies made something tear inside of me and I couldn't bear the thought.

I should be glad for his arrogance, I thought. And for once I listened to the voice of reason. I relaxed a little into him and Eric's smile shifted just a little and became just that much more tender. He kissed me softly and then nuzzled into my sweaty temple. I felt a brief moment of wetness and turned to look at him. Did he just... licked me? Ew.

"Did you dream of my final death?" Eric asked, licking his lips. I stared at him, icked-out. I'd never stop being surprised at what vampires thought was appropriate social behavior. "Is that why you taste of fear?"

I blinked at him. I didn't know whether to be grossed out or impressed at his perceptiveness. The willies won out and I shivered involuntarily.

"N-no," I said, and felt the bile rise in my throat. A wave of nausea consumed me as the images hit me again and my body convulsed against Eric in dry heaves. Eric disappeared for a second while I curled over and clutched the sweat-stained sheets, hoping I wouldn't actually bring anything up. In a second, Eric was back with a glass of water from the bathroom, and rubbing soothing circles on my back as he held the glass to my lips.

When the heaves passed, I shivered. I really thought I might have a flu bug. I hoped I did. It would be better than just being certifiably crazy. Anger flashed through me at my helplessness. God damn it.

"Tell me," he said gently, removing the glass and pulling me to him. I curled my cheek against his chest. I didn't have to look at him. Good.

"Eric, you said before--last year--that you would listen to me, even if you didn't care, because you liked having sex with me and you wanted me to want sex with you, too," I started. I knew it was convoluted, but it was the best I could do. I didn't think he'd want to hear my maudlin list of all the people I killed. Eric killed with glee. I'd seen it.

I looked up at him. He was peering down at me with that unreadable expression. His brow furrowed slightly but he nodded once.

"Will you listen again?"

He turned and braced himself over me, and I found myself shrinking back from his full attention and the intensity of his gaze despite myself. The image of Gran and all the others piled together in my little kitchen was still fresh in my mind, but looking into Eric's clear, unworried eyes, I began to hope. Hope that I could get better. Hope that Eric would stay. Hope that I wouldn't be haunted forever--at least not in a way that would keep me trapped and miserable the rest of my life.

I wanted to stop being controlled by my losses.

I wasn't used to my losses being such a heavy burden and I can't say I liked the direction my mind was taking me. Getting bogged down by loss was an unsettling feeling, like learning to read with your hands instead of your eyes. Disorienting. I'd spent so much of my life just accepting loss--what else was there to do? I was no Poor Pitiful Pearl--at least I didn't used to be. We Stackhouses were tough, especially the women. What they say about southern women is true: sweet as pie on the surface, tough as nails underneath. We pride ourselves on not just getting by but getting past those bumps in the road. I guess I'd had just one two many bumps lately and I was stuck in a ditch. I couldn't dig my way out no matter how I tried.

But when Eric reappeared, when he held me close tonight, told me he'd always come back, _always_--I felt almost as sad as I did relieved.

Who would have thought that getting Eric back, maybe not my old Eric but this new Eric who, after all, seemed fine enough, would coincide with the unleashing of all my old grief? That it would maybe be connected somehow? I hadn't. If I had, maybe I would have kept a lid on it. As it was, I was left with a tiny sliver of hope, and it cut its way into my aching heart and all my losses came tumbling out: Not just the deaths for which I was directly responsible, but my folks, Uncle Bartlett, Gran, Clancy, Lafayette, even Dawn and Maudette. Maria-Star.

But mostly Gran.

I could feel my heart beating hard and I can't say what Eric was seeing in my face. I could almost not stand that he was looking at me, seeing this. I wiggled out from underneath him and went to the guest room to retrieve my photo albums out of the closet. I brought them back to bed and curled against Eric under the covers, flipping through them.

"Ah," said Eric quietly. "I see."

The pictures were old and curled, the old cling-form style photo albums yellowing. But the memories were all still there: Gran and Gramps on the couch. Gran making her famous chicken and dumplings, holding up the ladle proudly for the camera. I laughed at it and felt grateful again for Bonnie. Gran wiping sweat from her brow while she planted the first round of bulbs in the yard, a relaxed smile on her face. Then there was the old photo of Gran with my dad and Aunt Linda when Daddy and Aunt Linda were kids. She looked proud as could be, an arm protectively around each of them, a secret smile on her face. My fingers traced over it. I never noticed that before. Secret smile. Now I knew what that secret was.

My dad had been so handsome. Dashing, even. Jason definitely favored him. My heart panged.

A photo of just Gran, around age 50, at a big family dinner. She's pulled away from the table and twisted around to face the camera. But the picture was folded over. I unfolded it and saw why: It was Gran with Uncle Bartlett. I shivered. I knew that smile. In the background of the photo, just hazy and out of focus, I could see my own eyes staring back at me, large and pained and scared. Later that night, Uncle Bartlett came into my room....

I gritted my teeth and tensed. Eric pulled me to him, not speaking, just letting me silently lead him through my life, my family's life. I straightened my shoulders and shrugged away from him for a second, needing distance. I took a deep breath and wiped a tear from my cheek with the back of my hand. My nose tickled with dust from the album. Fat lot of good this walk down memory lane was doing me. Somehow, I felt a little calmer, though, knowing that Eric was with me and I let myself settle back against him again. For tonight, no one would be coming into my room but him. And him, I wanted. He made me feel good and I leaned into him, craning my neck up to feel his lips on my skin. Eric took the hint and pulled me into him, holding my breast possessively and humming into my skin.

I couldn't explain it if you asked. I just felt... home.

I flipped forward in the photo album. That was the last photo of Uncle Bartlett that Gran had. Instead, there were lots of photos of Gran sitting proudly with Jason and I, we two tow-headed kids, me with my hair in braids about falling out, Jason with shaggy hair during his skateboarding phase.

"I miss her, Eric," I said in a small voice. "I miss all of them."

I ran my finger over Jason's face and felt the distance between us.

Eric kissed my temple and lowered his nose to my ear. "It is her that you dream of."

I sat still for a second, not wanting to delve into all of it. I glanced at the photos. This was how I wanted to remember her--not bloodied and lifeless in my kitchen. I felt the bile on the back of my throat again and clutched my stomach. I nodded. Eric held me up.

"It's OK. I have you."

I... I didn't know what to say. I felt... soft, breakable in a way I couldn't remember feeling since I was very young. I glanced at the photo album again, at Uncle Bartlett's careless smile. One wrong touch... One touch. I couldn't take it. It would hurt too much. I squeezed my eyes closed, forcing out the tears waiting there, and pressed myself into Eric's cold, unmoving chest.

After all the people I'd lost, maybe it made sense that I'd fall in love with one who was already dead.

I blinked.

I looked up at Eric. _The one I..._

I looked down at the photos again and shook myself, sucking in a deep breath to clear my mind.

"Not just Gran," I said, running my hand over her photo, smiling up at me and embracing a younger version of myself. "Did... Did you know I found her? In my kitchen. She'd been..." I sighed. "René killed her because he hated women who dated vampires so much. He... thought she was me."

Eric tensed around me pulling me to him tighter. I felt his chest rumble and then the quietest growl escaped his lips.

"When you are well, you should come stay with me."

His voice was deep and rumbly, and brooked no opposition. But I was so lost in thought I didn't respond for a long few minutes. My head was fuzzy and I was tired, but my anxiety wouldn't let me rest.

"That won't bring Gran back," I said, trying not to sound cross. "It wouldn't have saved her."

Eric shrugged. "Is there more?"

I gritted my teeth, wishing the answer was different. I nodded.

"Tell me," he whispered against my temple. Maybe it was his closeness or the calm I always felt around him, but I relaxed back into him and just started talking. I told him about the dreams: About how everyone I loved morphed from happy and alive to dead and mangled. How I couldn't stop thinking about the blood dripping from Dawson's bed, or the knitting needle sticking out of Breandan's shoulder, about the Summerland, about Maria-Star and Debbie Pelt and everyone else.

And then a thought I hadn't had came to mind, something I hadn't dreamt about in years and something I didn't want to think about.

"The fairies killed my parents," I whispered, tuckered out but unable to shut up. I flipped open another photo album, the one we brought over from my parents house when Jason and I moved in with Gran that horrible fall day. There was my dad grinning a goofy smile at the camera, his blond hair askew as he carried in a Christmas tree, his hand on the thick trunk buried among the prickly branches. In the background, Jason and I were bringing up the rear, struggling to hold the top of the tree off the ground. We'd gotten so many needles all over the floor that Momma had made us sweep and wipe up the sap before we were allowed to have our Christmas cookies that night. I smiled at the photo, at my toothless grin and my fuzzy hood up over my head, hiding my eyes so that I had to tilt back my head to see. My blond pigtails poked out from around the hood.

I flipped the page over and my breath caught. My heart grew heavy and I felt my energy leave me. My face felt numb suddenly. It was a picture of the four of us together. Me on Daddy's lap, Jason on Momma's. We were wearing shorts and Daddy had on a flowered Hawaiian shirt, his face tan and rugged. All of us were staring at the camera, practicing our best school-picture smiles--all but Momma. She was staring at Daddy with so much love it was like the rest of us might as well not even have been there.

I shivered a little with acceptance. That's how it had always been with Momma. We'd always been in the way.

That was only a few years before... My heart burned and twisted and I thought I would fall out right there, right then, and maybe never get up again. I turned from the picture and wrapped my spare arm around Eric's waist. I felt empty suddenly and wondered if anything would fill me up again. Eric did not move, just sat still for a minute while I formed myself around him.

Finally, he leaned down and buried his face in my hair.

**Eric's POV**

Sookie's scent washed over me and her pain was palpable, even without the blood bond. I never thought I would care about the pain of a human again, unless I was the one inflicting it. And yet... I wrapped my arm around Sookie and tugged her up a little, burying my face into her hair. I found myself humming against her and petting her slowly.

"I was vampire when my father died," I started and then paused, my whole body tensing. The revelation was unbidden. I resisted the impulse to speak further. I cursed Dear Abby and then kissed my Bonded's warm crown, remembering how well received my confidence had been the last time.

I rubbed her back, soothing the muscles in her neck. She shuddered against me, and not in a way that led me to believe she was willing to yield to me again.

"My Maker allowed me to return to my village," I said after taking a moment to compose myself, recalling his face curled into a cruel smile as he watched the scent of my mother's blood, oozing from the wounds on her face, hit my nostrils. He had shoved me forward, urging me to "be the vampire I was." I ground my teeth now as I had then, and tensed my muscles to still my movement as I had then. I had not been able to keep my fangs from descending. "My mother was destroyed by his death."

I summoned the memory of her wailing, sharing it with Sookie, caressing her all the while, her warm presence calming me. "I had only heard wailing like that once before, and only a few times since," I said. I ran my hand over her, absently checking to ensure she was well. "She had scratched her face so severely she was bleeding. It was everything I could do to hold back from draining her."

I swallowed back the saliva that filled my mouth even now. I looked out the window as Sookie tensed. "I am vampire, Sookie. I will always react to blood. And I was particularly young and out-of-control then." After a moment, she nodded stiffly and I rubbed her back dipping my head down to her ear, whispering. "I did not hurt her. I did not speak to her. I would have been revealed and staked. I left her and found a family traveling in the wood. I drained the father and glamoured the mother to offer herself to my family as a nursemaid."

I did not mention the children. Sookie pressed up against me and looked me in the eyes. I had the urge to look away from her and felt a flash of relief that the bond would not allow her to feel the surge of emotions roiling inside me at this moment. I pulled her back to my chest, relishing the feel of her breast and, behind it, her heart, thrumming against me.

"I had not thought of her for centuries until I came to you."

I lifted her hair, fanning it out on her back. I quickly reached down and covered her again with my robe, sensing her chill. When I glanced down at her, I tensed at the sight of her tears, the memory of her screams, of her weak invitation into her home. I cursed the darkness that plagued her, that had her in its iron grip, no intention of releasing her. I looked into her eyes, wishing I could glamour her into peace. I held her face, allowing my eyes to explore hers before I reached out with my influence. Her pupils dilated for a second but then she pressed on me. Before she could speak, I kissed her, pulling her tight against me, subduing any displeasure. I rolled on top of her, keeping her here, keeping her safe under me, as I explored her mouth with my tongue. The pounding of her heart reassured me.

"That was the last time I returned to my family," I whispered when I finally let her up, emotion leaving me. I sighed, relieved to be free of the irritating pull in my chest.

Sookie pulled back and looked at me, and her expression was a little horrified. I smiled at her. So young.

"You don't miss your family at all?"

I laughed and kissed her cheek and waved a hand, shrugging. I wove my thigh between hers and heard her gasp. She was flushed. Beautiful.

"It took about a century, but I no longer think of them," I shrugged, watching her, wondering if she understood. Her eyes were glazed. I wondered if she was even listening.

"Humans are short-lived, Sookie." I ran my eyes over her young, warm human form. I caressed her cheek with my knuckles, studying the warmth and smoothness of her skin, how the heat passed into my cool fingers. "Generations of my children and my children's children have passed. I am still here."

I paused and looked at her. I had taught my vampire children this: Only a foolish vampire concerns himself with human deaths. It's a recipe for misery. Compton is a prime example.

"You don't miss _any_ humans?" Sookie asked. Her shoulder twitched. Her face puckered into a frown. She blinked rapidly. The tears came anyway.

I kissed her eyelids, stealing her tears, savoring them. I opened my eyes and looked at her again, all humor gone.

"Of course I do," I said. I set my jaw and pinched her chin between my thumb and forefinger. Slowly, I lowered my face to hers, kissing her carefully, lingering and memorizing her taste. "I expect I will miss more."

I ran my hand down her neck, massaging a little as I went, glancing into her eyes occasionally. _Let me turn you._

She looked at me in a way that told me that she still did not understand. I arranged my face in careful contentment. I kissed her again and I turned us back over, pulling her atop me, her head on my chest. Her heartbeat thudded reassuringly.

I looked at the opposite wall, decorated with an old watercolor of cotton fields and suddenly saw that old stone compound among the trees. I danced my fingers along her back.

"A few years after my Maker released me, I set out on my own. A war between rival nestmates left me the only survivor," I started, surprised again by the candor this woman evoked in me. "We were still going to ground every morning, living in caves and the dirt, subsisting on travelers and thieves, warring amongst ourselves for the few scraps of food we could find.

"I found myself one night flying over a clearing in a wood, and spotted a large stone compound filled with people and light." I could still smell the mixture of bark and sage and warm human blood, still recall the soothing chants drifting up into the air, above the wind. "I had long ago learned to present myself as a weary traveler, and ill. It wasn't far from the truth. I was weak with hunger, and I could see the pulsing of blood in their veins even from a distance."

My fangs ran out at the memory of the smoke combined with the scent of blood. It smelled thin, not pungent. I knew immediately the men ate no meat. Still, it took all my strength to keep myself from mowing down the lot of them on sight.

"It turned out to be a monastery. This was very good news. It was a place used to taking in the ill and the wandering, and they welcomed me." I paused and looked down at my Bonded. "I have told you I was never Christian, yes?" My Sookie nodded, a look in her eye telling me that she was captivated. A small pressure built in my chest at her expression. I leaned in and kissed her.

"One of the brothers, Brother Jacobi... took a liking to me," I said, smiling a small smile. I could still recall his thin, delicate fingers, his gentle eyes, his solid, warm body, so much smaller than my own. I had recognized his look of lust immediately. "He was much kinder than my Maker. He kept me close to him for years, giving me a soft place to rest in the basement during the day and treating my feedings as part of his asceticism."

"Asceticism? That's like when a priest gives up wealth and position, right? But don't they also give up sex?"

I smiled at my Bonded. She always surprised me.

"His vows were none of my concern," I shrugged. "However, he did not bed me--not immediately. He strove to meet his vows, and prayed nightly for the ability. We lay together, though, many, many nights, cuddling. After 10 years together, he surrendered to his desire. He prayed immediately after, and that became his ritual. He was obsessed with this idea of his sin." I shook my head, scowling in distaste. I still find the idea useless. "Perhaps he believed my feedings were part of his penitence. I do not know. We did not discuss it. I performed physical labor for the brothers. He was gentle and kind. He showed me mercy when he discovered what I was. He maintained me and gave me a taste of life above ground. He taught me to read and write."

I caught a small movement and saw Sookie's eyes widen. I smiled and kissed her.

"It would be a mistake to pity me, dear one," I smirked. "Reading and writing were not a part of my human life. We navigated by the stars and spoke our stories instead of writing them. Once I became vampire, I was concerned solely with survival. My time with Jacobi was the first I wanted for nothing."

His hands were soft and warm. I could still picture him, seated at the large, heavy drafting table, a lamp burning late in the evening, as he placed the brush in my hand, covering my larger hand with his smaller, ink-stained one, guiding my movements until they were fluid, graceful. He was gentle with me and taught me to value the quality. Sookie would not regret my time with him if she knew how much of what he taught benefited her.

I laid her back on the bed and leaned over her, taking her mouth slowly, caressing her side, her shoulder, her hip, consciously avoiding her erotic centers, allowing the desire to build in her slowly.

When she was flushed, I pulled back and looked at her softly. Perfect. I pressed her hair back from her face.

"Did... did you love him?" Sookie looked... concerned about this. Surely she knew that in our long existences we had experienced every form of sex, and learned to enjoy most of it?

I kissed her again. _Not as I love you, dear one._

"I was grateful to him," I said quietly, recalling the pleasure of his embrace, of his warm body curled around mine, the first moments of stability in my vampire life that were not cruel. "I was fond of him." I cut my eyes at her, withholding my smirk. "I appreciated him."

I played with a lock of her long, blond hair. "I would not say I loved him."

I kissed her again, this time harder, and trailed my mouth down to her neck kissing and sucking and teasing her with my fangs. She smelled delicious and I licked her pulse, moving against her lightly. She sighed and fisted her hands in my hair. Finally, I pulled back and looked at her.

"I stayed with him for decades. One night I awoke and he was not in his chamber, nor was he in prayer. When I asked, a brother informed me that Jacobi was in the infirmary, being bled." I laughed now as I had then. If only they had known how well bled he had been. Unfortunately, I also knew this meant that the treatment would not work on him.

I kissed Sookie's breast and then returned my gaze to hers.

"When I went to him, he was sweating and smelled of death." I tensed and my body burned with the memory, my chest becoming heavy and my stomach hollow. "He was in tremendous pain. His tongue was black. He begged me to drain him, to turn him. But he had made me promise not to turn him, even in the event of such a deathbed plea."

I swallowed back the bile that rose in my own throat and struggled to remain laid out next to Sookie. I kissed her over her heart. "He made me promise not to mourn him. He offered me one last meal and then sent me away."

I clenched my jaw. I felt a warmth on my hand and I realized I had balled it into a fist on Sookie's belly. She had placed her hand over mine. Her eyes shimmered with tears.

I leveled my gaze at her and shook my head. She would not cry for me. This small human would not cry for me. And yet I would be lying if I said I was not… affected by her impulse.

"He did not want me to see his death, he believed I would recover more quickly if I left before his passing." I could feel the wind in my hair even now and turned my head to watch our hands, her warm one over my cold one. I turned my palm up and opened my fist, taking her hand in mine. I brought it to my lips and kissed it. "I offered him my blood. He had had it before, during another illness. But this time he refused. He insisted he had denied God too many times already, and that he was being called home."

I remembered the resignation on his face, his deathbed desperation. He had clutched at me, holding me tight and sending me away all at once. He told me he loved me that night for the first time. He had pressed his brush into my hand, along with a piece of parchment.

"You were bonded with him?" Sookie asked it as if she were offended, as if she were hurt. I eyed her curiously as emotions flicked over her face. Her body tensed. Interesting.

I nodded. "I did not know what it meant then, just that I did not want the control over him that I had seen my Maker exert over other humans." He had been too gentle, too kind. I had not wanted to rob him of his essence by only taking blood.

Sookie's glare softened and her eyes swept my face, as if she were seeing something she'd never noticed before. I looked at our hands, still intertwined.

"I stayed regardless. I labored for the brothers. I found myself willing to refrain from feeding. Perhaps it was Jacobi's example, his restraint. I never once visited the infirmary until after he was gone."

I closed my eyes and lowered my head to kiss her hand again. I couldn't have been prepared for what Sookie did next.

"Shhhhh," she whispered, and pulled me to her breast. She wrapped her arms around my shoulders tightly and ran fingers through my hair. I rumbled in pleasure. This small human. I might never adjust to her desire to comfort me, even if I had centuries with her.

Which of course I did not.

The emptiness in my stomach grew and became heavy. I wrapped my arms tightly around her waist, resting my face between her perfect reclining breasts. Her heart beat against my cheek reassuringly.

I would not tell Sookie all the years I spent circling the monastery, never once daring to visit again. I knew some of the brothers suspected what I was, believed me a demon, a hell creature. They had no idea that Jacobi's kindness gave me confidence in what I was, who I was, that the respite and gentleness he had offered had been the key.

The chanting of the monks rang in my ears. I had grown to love the sound, but it offered nothing but base solace on the day they lowered Jacobi into his humble tomb. I had cursed myself for allowing myself to grow attached to a human and buried my... emotions... deep inside. I flew off into the night, cutting through the trees like a spear and before I was fully aware of it I had ripped out the throat of a man and glutted myself on his rich, full-bodied blood. As my palate swam in the taste, I told myself that _this_ was what I was meant for, not that thin, meager blood of the monk. Not for Christian charity and atonement. I was vampire. I would never be denied again. I would be the master of these humans. I would never allow them to be my master again. My body tensed with conviction and I heard Sookie squeak out a protest as my muscles tightened around her.

I eased slightly and with great effort. This, I realized then, is why we call them pets. They will always die before us. It is nearly impossible to avoid them but grief is a forgone conclusion once you invite a human into your nest. You must keep them under tight control. You must recognize your superiority and the supremacy of your desires.

And yet the monk was as much a part of me as my Maker. I felt my eyes well and I cursed this long buried emotion and, briefly, the naked and willing human who summoned it from me. _Keep them as pets. Remember your supremacy,_ I thought, and for the first time in centuries the inadequacy of it echoed through me.

_You will forget me_, he'd insisted. But I never had. There had been others--pets, not paramours. No one to rival Jacobi, who had given me solace and kindness when no one else had. Not until now.

"How long did it take you to get over him?" Sookie's voice was soft, thick with emotion. I did not know if it was for me or for her. I could not imagine this human crying for my loss.

I scoffed reflexively._ One does not get over something that was meaningless. _I had told myself this for years, as I frequented the bordellos kept as cover for the blood farms run by older, more powerful vampires. _One does not get over..._ I leaned down and ghosted my lips over her stomach, watching happily as goose flesh followed in my wake. She clung to me tighter. How could she be anyone's but mine?

"I will speak of him no longer." _Not when I have you--and we have so little time._ "He's been dead for nearly 700 years. You are here now."

I kissed down to her side and along her hip.

"Eric..." she protested softly.

"I will tell you what he taught me, dear one," I said popping my head up to give her a fangy smile. "He taught me to respect time, especially in regard to humans--to relish my time with them. To... what is the modern word? Maximize. I learned from him to maximize our time together."

I slipped my fingers between the cleft in her legs and found her ready. I growled in satisfaction.

"Oh," she panted.

"Yes, lover," I said, curling my fingers. "_Oh_."

I proceeded to maximize the little time I had with my lover, my love. I proceeded to show her my love until she collapsed asleep on the bed and I was left to hold her and watch as she slipped away from me.

***

_From: Eric Northman_

_To: Bobby Burnham_

_Subject: Wednesday tasks_

_Bobby,_

_Bring the envelope labeled "outtakes" to the Bon Temps house. You will be courteous and kind to Sookie and to the aide Bonita. If I hear anything different, you will not survive the week._

_When you stop at the house, you are to pick up a number of documents from Bonita, including a thumb drive. Bring that to the office and print out and fax all documents inside to Nevada. Both it and the other document must arrive at the Nevada offices by first dark. Prioritize these two tasks. If you do nothing else today, you will do these._

_Your Master_

I pressed send and closed the lid of the laptop, moving soundlessly to the other room to place the device back in its attache case and fetching de Castro's formal order for Sookie to sign.

When I returned, Sookie's arm spread out to where I had been laying. Her heartbeat was normal, her breathing quiet and even. I slowly lowered myself back onto the mattress, enjoying its resilient softness. Much better than the hole in the ground.

I had just settled and began studying the details of the king's rescission of his formal protection of my Bonded when Sookie's breathing shifted and her eyes opened slightly. I lowered the paper and watched to see if she would wake. It was an hour before dawn. I would have to rouse her to get her to sign the document in any case. It would be better if she woke on her own.

"What's that?" she croaked out.

"This, dear one, is something I must speak to you about. Are you awake enough to talk?"

She nodded groggily and pulled herself up to sitting against the headboard. She took the paper from me and turned on the light, blinking against its brightness. I watched as she cleared the mucus from her eyes and focused on the paper, with its wax seal and the crest of Nevada, Arkansas and Louisiana.

"It's from the king?" she started, clearing her throat. I nodded. Then she looked at me. "He's rescinding his protection?"

Her eyes flashed at me. I raised an eyebrow and nodded.

"What, I'm too much trouble for him, too?"

"Too?" I asked, amused that that was her first thought.

She huffed out a breath and held out her hand. "Gimme a pen."

I raised an eyebrow and handed her my fountain pen. "What, no protest from my fiery human?"

"I'm not your anything," she spat back, and I laughed. Like hell she wasn't. "I never wanted his protection and it didn't do any good anyway, when push came to shove."

She scrawled her name across the bottom and shoved it back at me. She slumped against the headboard and moaned. "Ugh. What a way to wake up." She eyed me. "What are you so happy about?"

I eyed her nipples, which had appeared over the edge of the blanket and smiled at her. "That was much easier than I expected, dear one."

She didn't appear to like my smile. "Woke up on the wrong side of the bed, did you?" I smirked all the more. I loved that human expression. After sleeping in the dirt for so many centuries I did not understand how anyone could ever wake up on the wrong side of a plush mattress.

She rolled her eyes at my use of human slang, but her scowl broke and she turned to me. Just as suddenly, her expression was thoughtful. She bit her lip.

"Can I ask you something?"

I looked at her, suspicious. What more could she need to know?I rasied my brow expectantly and she responded only by taking my hand in both of hers and staring at it.

"I can't…" she started after a few minutes. "I can't stop thinking about Clancy's death. Do you regret it?""

**Sookie's POV**

"Regret what, exactly?"

I tore my eyes from Eric's hand to look up at him. Eric leaned over me, rubbing himself against my chest and turned off the light. We were in the cool darkness again and I could tell by the light in the sky that dawn was approaching. My heart ached to think he'd have to leave me for the day. After tonight, after hearing about Eric's own losses, I didn't think I could stand to keep away from him for long.

"Clancy hated me." Eric didn't protest, so I guess we were on the same page. Sure, I was good enough to sit on his lap during the planning session for Rhodes, but not good enough to give up his seat for. Typical vamp. "He didn't think I was worth it. Why… did you make him die for me?"

It had been nagging at me. I couldn't forget that hushed negotiation just before the fairies burst into Dr. Ludwig's clinic, bringing hell and damnation with them. He'd asked to be released, asked to be relieved of having to die for a mere human. I knew I sounded ungrateful, but the pressure had built too high. I couldn't take all the people dying for me, especially when I knew that Clancy would just as soon me die in his place. And there was something else. Something about how quick Eric was to say he wouldn't sacrifice himself for me. Not that I wanted him to.

Eric wiped his face of expression. He just watched me in that way that made me feel like I might as well be in a petri dish.

I put my hand on his cheek. "Don't get me wrong," I said softly, trying to explain and still be honest. "It means so much to me that you... came to my defense. You said you wouldn't die for me—and I don't want you to. But you still were willing to send Clancy to his final death. Why?"

I stopped and looked down. I couldn't bear for him to see it, the sadness I'd been carrying since the fairy war.

"He shouldn't have… I mean, I'm… I'm not worth it."

Eric was on me immediately. He held my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him.

"Clancy died a warrior on my command," he growled. I tried to look away but he shook me, forcing me to look back. "No. You will not run from this. His death was honorable. He was mine to direct. He survived the takeover because of me. He owed me his life and his fealty."

Fealty. Why did that sound familiar? A sentence tickled my memory and my eyes widened at the big vampire in front of me. No. It couldn't be.

A little part of my heart fluttered and then thumped hard in my chest. I could hardly allow myself to believe it. _All those who owe me fealty will honor you._

And then he leaned down and kissed me hard, so hard it took me a minute to remember what he was saying. My whole body caught fire and I curled to him, throwing my leg around his hips, suddenly urgent, suddenly wanting to not think about any of this anymore. Wanting the escape only Eric seemed able to provide.

When he finally pulled back, he kissed my jawline slowly, like he was marking his way.

"I don't regret it," he whispered against my skin. "It was his duty. He honors you with his death."

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**A/N:** OK, lay it on me. What did you think? Reviews, comments, etc. Please and thank you.


	24. Chapter 24: The Sun on My Skin

**A/N:** Hi all. First of all, I'm so sorry it took more than a month to update. I took a vacation with friends, then I saw my ex and freaked out, and, well, that left little room for writing. But I'm back to it now. And thanks to my awesome beta , who helped me think this chapter out and then helped me make it more Sookie-like, I think it's awesome. I hope you enjoy it.

This chapter is dedicated to Modiggy and Northman Maille, who went through over the past month and commented on every single chapter. I can't tell you how amazing it was to get your reviews while I was in a writing slump and busy this month. It definitely helped to keep this story at the front of my mind. And someone also said they found this story through a community or on Twitter. Whoever you are who was so kind as to mention this story, please send me a PM. I'd love to thank you! So kind of you!

I know everyone in the U.S. at least will be running out to get the new CH book Tuesday, so I wanted to get this out before then. I am looking forward to it, of course. But I'm also scared to read it because I'm afraid it will change the course of this story. Let's hope not.

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Disclaimer:** Not mine.

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**Last time on Healing Blood:**

_I couldn't forget that hushed negotiation just before the fairies burst into Dr. Ludwig's clinic, bringing hell and damnation with them. Clancy'd asked to be released, asked to be relieved of having to die for a mere human. I knew I sounded ungrateful, but the pressure had built too high. I couldn't take all the people dying for me, especially when I knew that Clancy would just as soon me die in his place. And there was something else. Something about how quick Eric was to say he wouldn't sacrifice himself for me. Not that I wanted him to._

_Eric wiped his face of expression. He just watched me in that way that made me feel like I might as well be in a petri dish._

_I put my hand on his cheek. "Don't get me wrong," I said softly, trying to explain and still be honest. "It means so much to me that you... came to my defense. You said you wouldn't die for me—and I don't want you to. But you still were willing to send Clancy to his final death. Why?"_

_I stopped and looked down. I couldn't bear for him to see it, the sadness I'd been carrying since the fairy war._

_"He shouldn't have… I mean, I'm… I'm not worth it."_

_Eric was on me immediately. He held my chin in his hand, forcing me to look at him._

_"Clancy died a warrior on my command," he growled. I tried to look away but he shook me, forcing me to look back. "No. You will not run from this. His death was honorable. He was mine to direct. He survived the takeover because of me. He owed me his life and his fealty."_

_Fealty. Why did that sound familiar? The word tickled my memory and my eyes widened at the big vampire in front of me. No. It couldn't be._

_A little part of my heart fluttered and then thumped hard in my chest. I could hardly allow myself to believe it. _All those who owe me fealty will honor you.

_And then he leaned down and kissed me hard, so hard it took me a minute to remember what he was saying. My whole body caught fire and I curled to him, throwing my leg around his hips, suddenly urgent, suddenly wanting to not think about any of this anymore. Wanting the escape only Eric seemed able to provide._

_When he finally pulled back, he kissed my jawline slowly, like he was marking his way._

_"I don't regret it," he whispered against my skin. "It was his duty. He honors you with his death."_

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**Chapter 24: The Sun on My Skin**

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**Sookie's POV**

_The hypnosis session you are about to experience is designed to assist you in healing from grief. _

"Wait," I said, pressing the stop button on the CD player Bonnie had dragged into my bedroom. "I thought you said this was meditations on grief. This thing isn't going to make me cluck like a chicken or crave pizza or anything, is it?"

Bonnie looked at me, exasperated.

"Sookie," she said, her voice hard. I'd been giving her a hard time since she arrived this morning and waved this stupid CD in my face. But I held strong. After all, I'd read about hypnosis in one of my romance novels. The dashing romantic lead had hypnotized the woman he loved to get her to see her real feelings. I wasn't up for that. I was chock full of too many feelings to face them all at once. And then I thought back, remembering a hypnosis session I saw in high school. Tara and Jason and me had gone to a party and they had a hypnotist. They invited people up and Jason, always ready to be the center of attention, jumped up on stage. The hypnotist made him cry like a baby and hump himself on Laudette Simms, the chubby girl in my grade who had been carrying a torch for my brother since fifth grade. I wasn't about to humiliate myself like that.

"Sookie," Bonnie said again, grabbing my attention. "Haven't you heard of people using hypnosis to stop smoking?"

I grimaced. Sure I had. Tara's momma had tried it once. She's still a two-pack-a-day smoker last I heard. I crossed my arms over my chest and hunkered down. And it didn't make her any less mean.

"It's the same idea. Besides, all hypnosis is is deep relaxation. You've been tense lately, haven't you?" I nodded and glared at her. She knew I had. My cheeks turned red remembering all the humiliating times I'd fallen out in front of her. "Well then, you don't really have anything to lose, do you?"

I scowled but reluctantly clicked back on the CD player and laid back on the bed on the tower of pillows Bonnie built behind me. But when the smooth, calm voice on the CD started telling me how the hypnosis would "reduce the chatter in my mind" and "clear the way for me to begin to listen to my own internal voice," I had to snort.

Right. Sitting quietly, listening to some New Age guru whisper calming nothings to me was going to do something magical. My eyes were closed but I still rolled my eyes.

Besides, I thought, my own internal voice hadn't been a friend to me for a while. It was forever convincing me of my weakness and uselessness. If you asked me, what I needed was less of that.

I shifted irritably in my seat, not interested in what else my supposedly great internal voice had to say to me. I fussed with the pillows behind me. My neck was stiff, so I moved it this way and that, circling my shoulders. What I wouldn't give for a back rub. I'd bet that would help more than this claptrap. My fingers wound around each other, and I found the sensation of my warm palm was comforting to my cool fingertips. My body shivered. I swallowed hard.

"Stop fidgeting," Bonnie insisted from the chair in the corner. "I swear, you've been through so much, and you can't sit still to listen to a voice on a CD. Just settle down and _pretend_ it might work."

I opened one eye and glared at her. She glared right back. I bet she'd had this showdown before, and her mind confirmed it. She was thinking that I was just as stubborn as the big ole human with the Were partner she'd nursed back from similar injuries a few years back.

I harrumphed and closed my eye. What I wouldn't give to go back and start the day over again, without this crackpot CD or Bonnie's pushiness. I'd been in a good mood when she'd arrived.

I thought back to how soft and cool the sheets felt wrapped around me, how cozy Eric's robe had been against my skin, how sore I was in all the right places. I might have replayed Eric's words from last night in my head a few times--just to be sure I remembered them, of course. _Always_, he'd said. He'd come back for me always. I'd felt my body twitch and a shiver of sadness pass through me. Much as I wanted to, I wasn't sure I could believe him. He had his life--or his existence anyway. He would have to go back to it. He knew it. I knew it. I'd always known it.

Enough of that.

I'd stretched and thought about how deep he'd gotten into me last night--and not just physically. The way he'd looked at me when he'd asked me about my nightmare, the way he'd rolled over me, bracing himself around me and caging me under him, and looked at me... I'd felt a jolt in my stomach just recalling it. I'd cuddled the soft white robe up around me and sniffed at Eric's scent like a lovesick teenager. Warning bells went off in my head, and that internal voice drown them out with memories of Eric's skin against mine.

By the time Bonnie came into the house, thinking about how big the moon was last night and how her car was eating up gas faster than usual, my thoughts had grown sour. I hadn't even begun to understand what Eric had told me about Clancy. I didn't know how I felt about that. Sure, it sounds romantic and chivalrous for everyone under Eric to owe me fealty. But now that I knew what that really meant, the real consequences, I didn't know if I wanted it. And that came part and parcel with Eric himself. This was where my thinking about Eric always took me. I hated it.

Before I could fall too deep into that worry hole, however, Bonnie had tapped on the door and given me a second to wrap the robe tight around me before coming in.

"Sit up, dear," she'd ordered chirpily, after greeting me warmly and commenting on how... refreshed I looked. I had blushed, knowing from her mind that her guess of what Eric and I had gotten up to last night wasn't far from the truth. I'd smoothed my hand over my hair nervously, struggling to assert my shields so soon after waking. She sat next to me and waved my hand away from my head and started fussing with my pillows, building a wall of them behind me.

"Now, I spoke to Dr. Eugenides last night about the... ah... incident yesterday, and he suggested that you start your day with this," she said, waving the damnedable CD in my face. I took it from her and looked at it. The cover had some kind of purple flower on it, floating in light blue water. It was a water lily, but some fancy one I'd never seen before. Across the front in pink script it read _Meditations for Grief_.

Oh brother.

I flipped it over and the tracks had titles like, "Meditation for addressing and releasing guilt," and "Meditation for letting go of a loved one."

My stomach turned. I'd like to have blamed it on my hunger--and I was mightily hungry after all our activity last night--but I knew that wasn't it. I'd slept well last night after Eric had calmed me. I was feeling good. I didn't want to think about this, not now, not when I was having a moment of calm.

"You look like you're sucking a lemon," Bonnie had laughed and I tried to relax my grimace. She had snatched the CD from my hands and, just like that, she was up off my bed and sauntering toward the door. When she reached the jamb, she had turned back to me, pointing authoritatively toward the bathroom. "You go take care of your personal needs and I'll fetch the CD player. Then, when I get back, you'll listen to this and I'll make you breakfast--unless you'd like me to stay here with you in case something happens?"

I clenched my jaw. How could a body be so grateful to a person and so resentful all at once? I was sure feeling both toward Bonnie just then. I wanted to loll in the bliss of an amazing night. I didn't want to dwell on this. I didn't want to think about it, not anymore, no more than was absolutely necessary. And in my book, dredging it all up with the help of some flaky chanting was far from necessary. I studied the quilt in front of me and picked at the little balls of lint off Eric's robe.

"Now don't give me that look, missy," Bonnie said, her patience already wearing. "I've seen this before and you need to face it or else those demons will chase your dreams forever."

Bonnie's voice was hard, authoritative, but I couldn't help the smile that tugged at my lips. Maybe she didn't know Dr. Gumby was a demon. I'd had far worse beings chasing me. If they were all like Dr. Gumby, they could set out after me any time they liked. It was the ghosts that were the problem.

I had looked up at her and she locked me with her gaze. Her jaw had been set and flexing, and I had suddenly been able to imagine her wrangling her little brothers and her grandbabies and that big ox of a man I'd seen in her brain yesterday, the one with similar symptoms to me and a Were lover. I had studied her for a moment and let my fingers grip the quilt between them. And then I sighed and drew myself up. Hell, I could listen to a CD for an hour. It probably wouldn't do any good, but it would get Bonnie off my back, so I'd sit still and listen.

So here I was, laying in my bed with Bonnie watching. I guess she could see through my charade and she wasn't going to leave me be until I was actually listening to the weird, smooth, deep voice and clanging music coming from the CD player..

_By doing this,_ the CD continued, in a soft soothing voice I already hated_, you will slowly open yourself to light, to health and to your unconscious mind's infinite ability to heal._

I concentrated on the words, trying to ignore how stupid I felt. This meditation stuff is for kooks--those crazy folks at airports, or maybe Californians. I wasn't sure what my pastor would say if he knew I was listening to this mumbo-jumbo, but I knew what Maxine Fortenberry and all the ladies in the church auxiliary would think. It was bad enough in their minds that I dated vampires. Now I was a hippie vampire-lover. Just great. I pushed it out of my mind.

Instead, I concentrated on the words the man on the CD had said. Now don't get me wrong. I didn't buy any of it, but it was a nice idea, one I'd like to believe was true. _My mind's infinite ability to heal._ I felt a momentary flutter of hope in my chest and squared my shoulders. Now that was something I was interested in, I reasoned with myself, because I knew Bonnie was watching any minute twitch in my shoulders or body language to indicate that I wasn't taking it seriously. It was like a mother watching to make sure her kid didn't feed the brussel sprouts to the dog.

I exhaled loudly and closed my eyes, placing my hands in my lap and uncrossing my legs, like the the CD told me to do. I could feel the knot of tension in my back and hear Bonnie breathing. I held up my shields, which made relaxing harder.

_Now take three slow, cleansing breaths to start, inhaling through your nose and exhaling through your mouth_, said the voice on the CD.

I had to hold back a laugh. _Slow, cleansing breaths_? Who talks like that? It's just air. It doesn't cleanse anything.

"Sookie." Bonnie's voice held a warning. So I made a big production of sucking in a deep breath, pulling up my shoulders to accommodate it. The voice told me to pay attention to how my body felt when I breathed in so I did. I felt tense because I was listening to a stupid meditation CD and being watched over by a mother hen. How was this supposed to relax me again?

The voice told me to hold the breath, and I tried, keeping it there, feeling the muscles between my shoulder blades pulse and throb, fighting against the expansion of my lungs. I felt the panic of being bound, of being held against my will, not allowed to move. Out of nowhere, the panic bubbled up and my throat itched with the desire to scream. But I held back, reminding myself that it was just a CD after all. Nothing to get too excited about. I held on anxiously, silently begging the voice to give me permission. I knew Bonnie would harp on me if I didn't do as the CD said. Finally, it told me to exhale slowly. I'd never felt such relief and I just tried to slow my out breath as my pulse raced through me.

You could have knocked me over with a feather when I felt my muscles relax and my bones start to turn to goo. All that from a breath? I furrowed my brow, but quickly relaxed it as I heard Bonnie shift in her seat.

At the voice's prodding, I did it again, the panic less intense this time and I was surprised to feel that I could inhale more deeply now that my body wasn't holding me so tightly together. I found myself listening to the voice more freely now, but I wouldn't give Bonnie the satisfaction of knowing that it didn't feel totally weird to be doing this. OK, yes it did. But I was surprised that it also felt kind of good. I could feel my blood pulse around my body. That was… unexpected. When I exhaled, I slumped a little against the soft pillows and my skin tingled.

My hands felt light on my lap.

_And one more. Inhale. Going deeper. And hold it.... Hold it.... And exhale. And as you exhale, just relax all the muscles in your body. Do it now. _

Oh sure, just relax all your muscles in your body. No problem, stupid smooth voice. It's not like I've been wound up like a go-car before you let it loose for more than a month now. I felt myself getting angry, but then I did the breathing and out of nowhere, I found myself having the urge to cry. I held it in. I didn't know what it was about. And the impulse made me mad, too. I didn't want to do this, not so early in the day. Not now. Maybe not ever. I took another deep breath and somehow that calmed me down.

_Good,_ encouraged the voice and I relaxed further. _Now I would like you to begin to imagine yourself floating on a raft, feeling very light and buoyant on the water, feeling very safe and very comfortable._

Now this was something I could get behind. I'd spent months floating on the pond out back of Jason's house, getting my body tan and reading one of my books in the hot Louisiana springtime. And suddenly, that's just where I was. I looked down in my mind's eye and saw myself in my little white bikini. My body was soft and golden and scar-free. I felt the water on my fingertips and heard it lap against the side of the little float I was on. I had always loved the sound. It was the sound of summer in Louisiana, of cookouts and swim dates with Tara, only this time no one was splashing me. It was just me, tranquil, and more peaceful than I'd felt in a long while.

I looked around and saw that the water was deep green-blue and that the sun sparkled across the surface in random patterns. Little peaks and ripples spread out from where I was, making the light dance in little arches on the surrounding trees and tall grasses. I could see little fish twitching their way through the undergrowth below the surface.

At the voice's suggestion, looked to the sky. It was deep, heavy blue, and littered with low clouds that trapped the humidity around me like a sauna. I imagined myself floating under the scrub trees and then back out to the middle of the lake again. The sky was clear, nothing but a few clouds on the periphery. I closed my eyes and hummed contentedly, and let my body finally soak up the sun it had been lacking for it seemed like months now. I could hardly believe it, but it was suddenly like the sun was seeping into layer upon layer of flesh until I was lulled, warm and safe-feeling. It was even more surprising that I welcomed it, almost craved it. I vaguely noted the sound of my door closing.

I looked to the horizon and saw how the blue of the sky turned hazy where it met the treetops. But the voice told me to look back up again, and imagine the low clouds turning white and fluffy, drifting past. _I want you to notice how relaxing that is. Notice what muscles are relaxing first,_ the voice suggested.

Despite myself, I did. Before I knew it, my breathing had evened out and I felt the heat melt the tops of my thighs, my ankles, my calved and finally creep into my shoulders.

I exhaled loudly, not meaning to, and found myself brought back to reality—the reality that I was letting the CD have its way with me. I fought it, focusing on my head on the pillows, the blanket over my legs. My shields slipped and I could hear the dull hum of Bonnie's brain somewhere in the house. But then the voice suggested I relax more and more and I found myself wishing I really were on that raft, in the sunshine, and I let myself return there, if only in my mind.

_Deeper and deeper, more and more relaxed. I want you to keep staring at the soft white clouds and deep blue sky, and off to one side is the sun. _

That I could do. It didn't seem so bad. It wasn't telling me to cluck like a chicken or sing or anything. It wanted me to relax. That couldn't be all bad, could it?

_Just listen to my voice. Ignore the sounds around you; they aren't important. Just draw right into me. Should you hear any sounds, they're just the normal sounds around you and they allow you to drift deeper into hypnosis, drawing closer and deeper to where you are. And just draw deeper into my voice._

That sounded dangerous, but then I was standing at the top of a set of stairs. As I took each one, I sunk deeper into the bed. My feet fell deep into the thick, plush carpeting. I wiggled my toes into it and let out a sigh. When I reached the last step, I was so relaxed I thought I might pass out.

And maybe I did. But if I did, I had the strangest dream I'd ever had in my life. I stood in the middle of a grey room. It was full of shadows, and made of cinder blocks. I'd never seen a basement before--the water table was too high in Bon Temps for one. But then my mind clicked and I got an unwelcome flash, of that big, burly brute, with his pants undone, the leer curled on his face. Dallas. I tensed and chocked, swallowing fast. But then in the way dreams sometimes do, Dallas was gone, and that man was dead, and the gray room was filled with light.

It didn't make sense, but for the first time since the fairy attack, the panic dissolved. A soft voice reminded me again how comfortable the room was, how safe. I saw a window to my left, and felt the sunlight again, and knew, somehow, that I could crawl out that window if I had to.

_From this moment forward, you find yourself more relaxed, focused and centered in your daily life._ He repeated it. _Stressful situations seem to flow off you. You remain relaxed, calm, centered and focused. Now go deeper._

I took a sobbed breath and felt myself settle against my better judgment.

_I want you now to imagine that you can give the grief a shape._

And just like that, a black smoke formed in front of me, around me, big and wild and vicious. It was so thick it tried to strangle me. Unconsciously, I held my breath.

_See it before you at this moment and just breathe._

I felt my chest rise and watched as the swirl turned into a heavy, pitch-black ball. It was like a canon ball, compact and dense and deadly. I knew just looking at it that it weighed more than I could ever lift.

I felt the sun from the window and suddenly felt myself holding a hand. It was thin and fragile, the skin loose around the delicate bones. I looked over and saw the pale blue eyes and softly creased face of my Gran--my protector, my cheerleader, my everything. I sobbed on my bed, feeling it around me for a second, before I could feel her cool, thin lips press against my cheek. In my mind, I blinked away tears, too surprised to move, too scared of losing her to breathe until the voice reminded me to.

She hugged me and kissed me again, and I could feel how small and fragile she'd become. Her body was cold. I shivered and a deep pit opened in my heart. I could feel the tears falling down my cheeks, my chest burning with longing, and heard a whimper. I couldn't concentrate on that though, because the next second, Gran lowered her chin and brought her free hand to my cheek, patting it the way she always did.

"I love you, Sookie," she said in her high, thin voice. And then her hand dissolved from mine and I turned to see her vanished. Just like before--too soon and without explanation. The pit, the hole in my heart tore some more.

I felt my chest move in fast, violent breaths and heard the sobs, but I couldn't seem to care that they were mine. I just felt my arms tingle with the desire to reach out for her. But I couldn't lift them. They were too heavy.

_Just breathe, observing this object before you right now. I want you to place all the remaining grief you hold onto in your body and in your mind and in your soul into that object_.

My throat started to hurt and I wanted to curl onto my side, but settled for just crying out instead. I could feel all the deep longing in my body siphon out into that hateful black ball. _I miss you,_ I thought tearily, and in my mind I yelled it. I clutched at the ball, and felt myself flush with anger. I hated it. I hated everything about that ball. I hated how dense it was, how compact. I hated everything it took from me and how it haunted me. _I hated it._ I focused all my energy on throwing my grief into it. For once, it wasn't their eyes that followed me, the people I'd lost, but the sickening, nauseating feeling of loss that accompanied every thought of them that I pulled from myself. I watched the ball, imagining all the pain, all the months and years of loss funneled into it. I hated it. I hated being controlled by my losses. I never wanted to feel it again.

_Take it,_ I thought. _Take it all. I don't want it._

If I could have shoved it out of me, I would have. The deep conviction of it filled every little pore of my body. I wanted it gone.

_Place all of it into the object right now. And just breathe._

I steadied myself without meaning to. I sucked in one breath and then another, slowing my sobs on instinct.

_We now give the object the gift of expression. It can now speak. It carries within it the wisdom of your learning from your experience with this grief. It's the container of your inner wisdom from a place larger than yourself. It sees your life before you more clearly than you can at this moment._

I sagged in that basement, surprised, confused. I felt depleted, but not empty. Less empty in fact than I'd ever felt, maybe. I thought of Daddy and Momma, of Maria-Star and Hadley. I thought of everyone who'd passed through my life and the pain I'd felt at their loss. I thought of Dawson and Amelia's sad, lost eyes. I thought of everything Gran had taught me. I studied the ball with wonder laced with weariness.

_It understands your place in the universe and the path on which you walk. It's always looking out for your higher good. It comes from the place of your higher love._

I couldn't stop it. I cried again. I was overcome. Could this... could this be a gift? It hardly seemed possible. _It means something,_ I told myself--or maybe that was the voice. _This whole thing could mean something, maybe something different than I'd thought._

_Ask the object right now to tell you the lesson you have just learned from the experience with this grief. Listen quietly. Hear what it has to say._

I stared at the ball, and I swear it stared back. I leaned forward in my mind's eye, straining to hear the quiet voice whispering out from the ball.

"Strong," it breathed. "You're stronger than you think." I teared up again and breathed deep as I felt the tears on my cheeks, on my neck, dripping onto Eric's robe. It was Gran's voice, slightly gravely, a little bit of a drawl, sweet. "You can survive anything."

I was quiet for a minute, looking at the ball in wonder. I wanted to reach out to it, but I somehow knew not to touch it.

"You're capable of great love and you're capable of loving even more," the ball continued, in Gran's voice. "You're worth it. You're worth all of it, Sookie."

The words sank into me like the sunlight had. It traveled up my body and settled in my chest, adding to the pressure there. Part of it seemed artificial. A tiny part of me scoffed. But the rest of me reached forward and wrapped itself in the knowledge and hugged it to me, not wanting to let it go.

_You are forever changed. You have now grown beyond where you have been_, informed the soft, gentle voice in a way that was so soothing that I couldn't help but want to believe it. Something new unlocked in me. I felt the window in that dank basement open and fresh air surround me. I wanted it--I craved the fresh air. The sunshine. The freedom. _You now carry a deeper wisdom, and this is yours to hold onto for the rest of your life._

Somehow I decided now was time to reach out. Instead of being hard and cold, the ball was smooth, warm and humming with energy. I tried to lift it. I held it up and for some reason, I saw myself, felt myself kissing it, letting my lips graze the surface.

_Now imagine an angel approaches you, peaceful, loving and wise. Feel energy from that loving angel, right now. Feel love flow out from them, into you, right now. _

_Gran,_ I thought, as she stepped forward, like something out of an old Casper cartoon. She was standing there wearing her old, faded jeans with the elastic waist and a thin blouse with little yellow and orange flowers tucked into them, and her white athletic sneakers with Velcro fasteners. It was her everyday outfit. The sun pouring onto her from the window in that basement reminded me of Sunday afternoons in her kitchen, and she was wearing her favorite old apron. She stepped forward and clasped my hand in both of hers and I felt shaky. I looked up. Her eyes were soft, proud, full of love for me. As our hands touched and our eyes held, a softness drifted into me. I felt my heart flood with love--more love than maybe I'd ever felt at one time--contentment and warmth and joy all bubbling out from my chest and flowing over me in an endless supply. I looked into Gran's eyes and her look softened more, telling me she understood, that she knew I was grateful to her, for this and everything else.

It was like a warm day in the sun and Gran's tight hugs and Christmas before the fire and holding Eric in my arms all wrapped in one. I felt wobbly from the force of it. I breathed deep and just kept crying. I reached up and cupped my hand over Gran's cheek. She smiled at me. It was a radiant smile, bright and sunny and holding nothing back. She was happy. She was proud of me. I blinked because I couldn't hardly accept it.

Then, because the voice suggested it, I took the big black ball of grief and handed it to Gran. It was so much lighter than I thought it would be. She took it like it weighed nothing and smiled even more brightly. I could feel her pleasure at my action, almost like she and I had a blood bond. Her contentment and love flowed into me and I basked in it, surprised and relieved and... humbled.

_Feel grief passing from you to Angel and surround it with love. See Angel taking the object for safekeeping and healing. _

In a rush, I felt lighter, happier, and I found I could almost match Gran's happiness. Gran squeezed my fingers one last time and pulled her hand from mine. I didn't wince. I still felt her love as clear as day. I watched as she reached into the pocket of her jeans and brought out a small, flat object. When she uncurled her hand I could see that it was the small cross Gran wore every day of her life that I knew her, pressed to her heart. I sniffled and ignored the sound.

_This object represents the lesson you have just learned from your experience with grief, _informed the voice. When the voice suggested I do it, I shakily took the cross from Gran. She smiled broadly and closed my fingers over it. I looked at my hand and felt loosened up in some way I couldn't explain. My heart, my chest seemed to have broadened, grown outside the walls of my ribs. I felt almost like I was floating. The love between Gran and I blossomed and bounced back and forth between the two of us. Gran leaned forward and kissed my cheek.

"Good girl," she whispered. She hugged my shoulders briefly with one of hers, and I'd never felt her grip so strong. She crushed me to her and I welcomed it, bathing in her. She didn't seem fragile anymore. She seemed robust as she'd ever been. I smiled tearily at her and held her to me as long as I could.

Then she pulled back, her eyes bright. I watched her, memorizing every little bit of her. This was how I was going to remember her from now on. Not on the kitchen floor--robust and happy and proud of me.

_Now, see Angel turning to leave, with the grief safely secured in their pocket. See Angel disappear with grief._ As the voice commanded it, Gran dissolved against the wall. For an instant, I wanted to follow, to chase after her, hug her one more time. But then a new, surprising feeling overwhelmed that one. _No need to cling,_ a new little voice told me. _There's enough love._ Peace. Acceptance. I knew she was here. I knew she loved me. I watched her go and silently thanked her for taking my grief with her, for giving me peace again. I could still feel her pride and love in me even though her image had faded.

I looked down at the cross in my hand, running my thumb over it's smooth, bevelled edges reverently. _See yourself holding onto a new and deeper meaning from the grief experience_, whispered the voice. _This understanding is yours to keep, this is your gift from the universe. It is your gift of healing. Your gift of hope and your gift of love. Surround yourself with that love right now, and just breathe in the presence of the inner wisdom of your being._

I did. I couldn't explain it later and I didn't want to, but I could feel a new energy, a new lightness in my being. I was capable of deep love. I hadn't used up my lifetime supply with all these losses, as I had thought. I was strong, stronger than this grief or than the Things. I felt power surge through my limbs at the thought. I thought of and felt the sun on my skin. I ached for more of it. I pulled the cross up to my heart and pressed it there, warming the metal on my skin.

And just before I dropped into a deep, dreamless sleep, I told myself I wouldn't let on to Bonnie that the CD had helped. But it had. I never would have believed it, and I wouldn't be telling anyone about it anytime soon, but I did feel better. And for that, I was grateful.

.

.

"Aaah." I eased into the water and enjoyed the blessedly quiet moment.

Bonnie had let me be after breakfast. She'd found me in my room sleeping not that long ago. I had no idea how long I'd been out, just that I'd slept soundly for the second time in more than a month, and that Gran loved me. I felt warm. I felt... lighter. Something heavy was lifted off of me, and for however long it lasted, I would welcome it.

I leaned back against the edge of the tub and draped my hair over the side.

It was a good thing Bonnie left me alone. When I took off the robe and looked at myself in the mirror, I was shocked and almost panicked. I had a quick flash of myself after the things got through with me, but then I could see that I wasn't cut, I wasn't bleeding, and there were, blessedly, no more stitches to worry about tearing. Seemed they'd all started to dissolve once I healed. What I did have was bruises everywhere: My breast from where Eric bit, my hips from where he'd held me, my butt where he'd bitten so hard, my thighs from where he'd... Oh.

I rubbed my legs together, remembering. I looked like five miles of bad road but I sure felt like an escalator in the sky--all shiny and new, and effortlessly going up up and up. Eric has that effect on you.

I closed my eyes and let my toes fiddle with the faucet, scratching the balls of my feet on the edge. My fingers traced the fang marks on my breasts and I bit my lip. God, I thought. When Eric tore into the house last night, I could hardly breathe with anticipation and excitement. But then when he'd thrown me over his shoulder, I was ready to kill him. I wasn't some wench for the pillaging. And the idea that he could barge into my house and treat me like one raised my hackles. But all that had passed in a flash, and my sense of outrage, truthfully, had been drowned by my own hormones. After lunging at him and sucking his tongue and climbing on him like the big, fleshy tree he was, I'd been ready to throw him down on the living room floor myself and had my way with him. Hell, if I'd been strong enough, maybe I'd have thrown him over my shoulder, too.

By the time he threw me down on the bed, I was ready for anything, everything he might throw at me. I hadn't been expecting him to keep me planted face down, or for him to maul my butt that way. I licked my lips and absently picked up the soap from its little porcelain holder tiled into the wall. I began rubbing the soap in small circles over my breasts, flashing for a second to that moment a week and a half ago when he'd bathed me in his blood and then cleaned me off the same way. I allowed the soap to drift further down.

Sure, I'd protested when Eric held me down. I was surprised. And I didn't want him to have all the fun. I was itching to get his clothes off, to get my mouth on him. I remembered how my muscles twitched with the desire, how his smell had made me drunk, how I'd rubbed his erection through his pants on the walk into the bedroom. God, I'd wanted him, all of him. And boy did I get it, in more ways than one. My fingers gripped the soap tighter as I ran tight little circles around my nub. I groaned as quietly as I could, mindful of Bonnie on the other side of the door, making the bed. I bit my lip to hold the sound in but it came out as a whimper.

"You OK in there, Sookie?" Bonnie asked quietly. "You need anything?"

My eyes flew open and I sat up just a little. _Not unless you can rouse a 1000-year-old vampire safely during the day,_ I thought. I took a deep breath to steady myself. I coughed to cover the yelp that came when my fingers dropped the soap and it landed right on my swollen lady bits.

"Ah, yeah, Bonnie," I coughed again. "I'm.... I'm fine. Just... relaxing. I'll be out in a little bit."

I threw my shields up. I didn't want to hear what she was thinking.

Bonnie mumbled her assent and I heard her walk away from the door. I sighed and drifted back down into the tub. I swear, sometimes I felt like a teenager where Eric was concerned. Maybe I was just making up for all my lack of experience when most kids get it. Or maybe it was just something that Eric did to me. I couldn't say a part of me didn't like it, whatever it was.

As soon as she'd moved a safe distance away I became very aware of how hard my nipples had become between the cool air and thoughts of last night. I ran a hand up and tickled the end with my nail. I sighed.

It didn't take much to get me back on my old train of thought. I'd seen lots of different sides of Eric's lovemaking techniques over the past few years: quick and dirty, slow-building and languorous, playful. But last night--I shivered involuntarily--oh, last night, Eric had claimed me. I thought back to his rich, deep voice muttering almost uncontrollably in his ancient language as he watched me while thrusting into me. He'd smiled evilly and put his hands on me not just to turn me on, but to lay his claim. I peaked down at the purplish blotches all over my skin. Yep. He'd sure marked his territory. I'd bet he would rub himself all over me as soon as he got up tonight, too, because I'd bathed and didn't smell like him anymore.

I shook my head and smiled a small smile. That vampire.

I pinched my nipple and the soap resumed its path cleaning my bruised areas carefully and thoroughly. I sighed and closed my eyes. Eric grinning fangily at me between my breasts. Eric biting, hard, on my nipple. Eric driving us harder and faster, to the point I couldn't breathe, couldn't move, where I just opened up and let him in, all the way in, in every way. I rubbed a little harder with the slick soap, and I swear I could feel Eric's fingers and fangs ghost over my neck. A finger left my nipple and traced where he'd bitten me there and I felt a tremor pass over me. I held the moan inside, just barely.

_My Sookie_, he'd cooed after we were all done. _My Sookie._ I thought of the look in his eye, and I swear I could feel his hands on my hips, pressing me down into the mattress, holding me up and angling me just right, taking control of my body, but still giving me everything I needed. I thought of how odd it felt to be folded near in half by Eric, and then how amazing it had been when he slid into me, hard and fast, how he'd sent little tingles over every square inch of my flesh, inside and out, how those tingles sparked to a fire and grew molten and sent off flares with every deep movement of his hips. I thought of how he'd held my eyes while he'd done it, his own eyes wild, bare and ravenous. I thought of his fingers working me, his tongue... his fangs... and... Oh. Oh God. I held my breath for a second, then heard myself pant as wind seemed to rush in my ears, forcing my eyes closed as I had a very nice but all too brief moment. Just an echo of the real thing.

And just now, just to myself in the privacy of this tub, I could admit it: I'd wanted to be his just then. I wouldn't have gone anywhere else in the world, even if I could have left the house, if it meant he'd look at me and handle me like that again and again.

I heard the water dripping again and opened my eyes to see the clear water, my bruises underneath and my fingers still gently petting me. I sighed and my face burned. I hoped Bonnie hadn't heard me. But my mind couldn't hold the thought. I was too relaxed. When my breathing returned to normal, I blinked and opened my eyes. In the distance, I could hear Bonnie running the vacuum over the area rugs in the living room and the washing machine churning. Birds were chirping outside. I looked up at the small window over the tub. Light was pouring in. It was one of those rare, crisp, bright, sunny early March days. It was the kind of day when I used to just love sitting on the porch and reading. I could just feel the cool air on my skin and the sun on my face. I sighed and slumped back against the porcelain lip of the tub. Not today.

I bit my lip as I watched my toes rise above the water line and sink back down again. There was something else that was nagging me, another fact I had to face: I still didn't know how anything could really work with Eric and I. Much as I tried to put it out of my mind, that sickening doubt was popping up all over the place. Eric had sent Clancy to his final death to honor me. I could see Clancy's lifeless body, hear Pam assuring Eric that Clancy lived on in Bill. I remembered thinking at the time that at least they were paying it the mind it deserved.

Still: a burden. Clancy dying for me was a burden. It's all well and good to say things like, "All who owe me fealty will honor you." It's a whole other thing for them to show that honor by dying against their will. Was this what I had to look forward to with Eric? If I needed proof that he was both a different species and older than dirt, Eric's calm certainty about his decision concerning Clancy was it.

I felt myself growing a little irritable. It was one thing for him to be high-handed with replacing my door, or even pledging me to him without my knowledge. It was another thing entirely for him to be high-handed with someone else's life, even if it was undead.

I shivered again and all those good feelings coursing through my body started to ebb. I assured myself my fear was the sane reaction. It was like Dr. Gumby had said to me that first day: It's sane to be scared of supernatural beings when they have so much more power than you do. And Eric more than fit that bill. If he thought nothing of ordering Clancy to his final death, what could he do to me? And was I just supposed to sit back and ignore the huge power imbalance between us, just because we'd spent a week and a half together practically joined by the libido, and sharing stories and Eric said he'd never leave me?

There was no doubt about it: Eric is scary, and I expect he's even more powerful than I know. It's insane to be with someone who could kill you as well as look at you.

I shook my head and brought my wet, pruning hands up to cover my face. I sank further into the water. What was I thinking, getting involved with him?

Was I involved? Unlike a few days ago, I guess I had to admit I was. I'd told Sam Eric was my man. Eric had been here for a week and a half straight. He'd said he'd come back and he did. He'd said he always would. And maybe most important, it was quickly becoming clear that I couldn't keep denying the obvious: I was in love with the big, confusing, arrogant, maddening vampire.

A cool excitement vibrated in my chest at the thought of that last admission, but it was just as quickly clamped down by sharp worry. He _was_ my man. _And_ he was scary as hell. And he probably wasn't just here because he liked having sex with me or even because he sometimes seemed to care about me. Oh no. I knew how vampires too well to fool myself into thinking this was some storybook romance.

As much as I could see in Eric's eyes last night a certain care and tenderness that reminded me of his time here a year ago, I knew he probably also had an ulterior motive. Eric never did anything for just one reason. He was a great multi-tasker. In this case, I was the task. If I was precious, I wasn't just precious to him. I was precious to everyone else in the vampire hierarchy who seemed to think of me as Sookie Stackhouse, Pet Telepath.

Eric needed to keep me close and fix me up so I could be trotted out at the next vampire shindig.

I sighed, but it came out as a half-strangled grunt of frustration. How could I ever really relax with Eric, knowing that it would never just be the two of us? I'd settle into a nice little moment with him, like I had last night, and I'd feel close and really cherished by him. And then something like de Castro's stupid letter would come up and burst the sex-and-affection bubble Eric and I had built around ourselves. Vampire shit. There was always more vampire shit.

It's not that I doubted Eric's affection, not really. I mean, vampires as a rule are pretty tight lipped. In the last week, I'd learned more about Eric than maybe any human ever had. And a part of me believed him that he would come back for me, and maybe I believe him when he said he always would. There was no doubting the fire burning in his eyes when he'd said it, or the confident care with which he'd leaned over me and nuzzled into me. I wasn't made of stone--I'd been glad I was laying down when he'd done it or my legs turning to jelly would have been a real problem.

But still, I knew that me getting better was probably more important to Eric than just personally. He was still the new guy in the Nevada pecking order. I was, as Eric had so tactlessly reminded me once, part of his retinue. I was his asset. And right now I was broken. He'd have to fix me up real quick if he didn't want hell and damnation to come down on him. That was part of why I was so quick to sign that stupid letter ending de Castro's formal protection of me. In my right mind I'm just as pragmatic as Eric, and I didn't want to cause him more trouble than I already had. It didn't really matter that I didn't ask for any of this.

I was brought back to the here and now when I felt my muscles tense as I inhaled. Yep. Thinking about this made me every bit as tense as I'd been this morning. I was so confused that my body froze up. I just sat there for a few minutes, listening to Bonnie think about her day and the errands she was going to run at Super Wal-Mart later, and the birds and the plinking of the leaky faucet. I felt the chill of the air on my exposed shoulders and the dull ache between my legs and the tenderness of my butt and my breasts.

Best to move on to something else lest I make myself even crazier. I wasn't going to find an answer right now, or even today. What I knew was that I was a fool. I'd gone and fallen in love with a vampire whose motives were never clear. And worst of all, I couldn't stop being a fool just because I knew it was a fact. I sighed, knowing I wasn't going to kick him out of the house, especially not after yesterday. And, just as surely, I knew that when this all came crashing down--as I was sure it would--I'd be in more pain than I'd probably ever felt.

I closed my eyes and pulled the plug.

For the first time in a month and a half I wanted to feel the fresh air on my face.

I looked past the old, wavy glass of the front window out onto my porch and the driveway beyond. It looked so nice out there--so clear and bright and my skin itched to feel the sun on it. The birds sounded extra loud today. I could tell from the way the air leaked through the window that it was cold out, but I couldn't seem to care. I sat at the window and looked at the sash. I could just push it up. One swift tug and that crisp air would come blowing in. It was just air, I told myself. I let my fingers trace the old white paint of the windowsill.

_It'd be refreshing_, I coached myself. My fingers drifted to the little metal hook on the bottom of the sill. Just a quick move and it'd be open. It'd be cool and the house sure did feel muggy suddenly. But. But maybe it'd also be... terrifying.

I tapped the windowsill a few times with my nails and closed my eyes, breathing deep. A hand traced up my neck and felt the pendant I was wearing there. I pressed it into my skin. Calm. I thought. Relaxed. I don't have to cling anymore.

I opened my eyes and drew myself up straight and unlocked the window. Bonnie would protect me. If anything happened, if I collapsed or cried out, Bonnie would take care of me. I took a deep breath and felt it push against the muscles threatening to constrict my chest and back. I sucked in a little more breath, closed my eyes one more time and held the air in there for a few seconds. As I exhaled slowly through my mouth I felt the tension unravel through me and I swear I could feel Gran's hand on my back, rubbing soft circles.

Just as the last bit of breath left me, I tugged up on the old window and the sound of the old paint rubbing against itself filled my ears. I felt a little woozy and stopped moving.

"Breathe, dear."

I gasped, but got the air I needed. And I felt a little less fuzzy.

And then I felt it, the cool air slip in through the... the open window and rush across my hands and arms. I shivered and the shiver turned to a surprised sob and for a reason I didn't understand--and I'd be happy to stop experiencing any time--I felt the tension rise up and break inside me, coming out through tears across my cheeks.

I could feel every nerve in my body, feel where my shirt touched my upper arms and where the hairs stood on end on the backs of my hands. The birds sounded louder. And for once, it didn't feel like the air was crushing around me. I didn't see the Things or my Gran piled in my kitchen. I felt... chilled.

Then I felt the hand on my back snake around and suddenly both strong arms were around my shoulders, hugging me tight against ample bosoms.

"I'm so proud of you, Sookie!" It was Bonnie's slight Texas twang. She didn't say anything for a long moment, and my pulse returned to normal and the pricklies on my arms and neck died away. I licked tears off my lips. Finally, I opened my eyes and looked down. The window was only open a sliver. But it was open. And I was still sitting upright. I wasn't curled in a ball. I knew where I was. I couldn't help the slight laugh that bubbled out of me and Bonnie patted me in response. I straightened up and Bonnie loosened her hold. She didn't let go.

I took a deep breath and patted her hand, turning to her. She finally took the hint and moved away from me, but not far. She stood behind my chair and acted like what just happened never happened. It was a relief. We both turned and looked out the window. It was so quiet out, and sunny. It was a perfect day. I just let it wash over me. I couldn't believe how relaxed I felt sitting there. I didn't want to venture out just yet, but I could sit here. I could look out the window, and I could do it without much of a barrier between me and the rest of the world. I felt... giddy. I was getting better. I smiled a small smile, not willing to jinx it by talking much about it.

Finally, I spoke.

"So..." I said quietly, still adjusting to having the window open. "Um, have you worked for humans who had their vampire companions asleep in their beds with them during the day?"

I froze and couldn't turn back to look at Bonnie. You know when you say something and you didn't even realize you were thinking about it? Yeah. I had one of those moments. Just then I felt a tug at my heart and I wanted more than anything to be able to be curled up with Eric in my bed during the day, to wake up with him, even if he didn't stir.

I saw a flash in her mind of a very dark room, beeping of a security code and then a pretty young redheaded girl lying in bed next to a sleeping figure. I could see Bonnie's fright when she first walked into the room and saw the sleeping vampire and the marks on the girl's neck, but the girl had been smiling. I self-consciously stroked the marks that were still on my neck, under my hair. I was relieved again that Bonnie hadn't insisted on going into the bathroom with me this morning.

She was thinking she was glad I hadn't been covered in fang marks her first few days here.

"Once," Bonnie said finally, softly. She didn't say anything about the redhead or the fang marks. I was impressed. It was a good sign that she didn't want to reveal her client's secrets, even after she'd stopped working for them. "I thought you'd decided to put off light-tighting a room for now, Sookie." She looked at me sharply, curiously.

I was just as curious at myself. I thought I'd let that dog lie, too. I looked out the window. I placed my hand on the glass.

"I did," I nodded. "But I guess I can't imagine how it would be. I mean, how would my friends react? I don't know if I could keep him safe."

Bonnie's look softened.

"I wouldn't worry about your friends," she said. "If they're any kind of good people at all, they'll stick by you. And family--well, there should be no question about that. It shouldn't matter what family does. You love them no matter what."

I turned to her and drew my eyebrows together, studying my normally unflappable aide. She was looking at me intently and I was surprised by the fierce turn her voice had taken. I watched her and got a sudden flash from her mind: A young girl morphing into a wolf in front of Bonnie's eyes.

I tried to hold back my gasp. _Her grandbaby._

Just like with her former client, she didn't say anything about her grandbaby. She just muttered a few things about how that's a sign of real love and loyalty, and if you can't give it to your family, then who can you give it to? But her mind was telling me something different, something more specific. She was thinking about her older brother. She hadn't known Jaime was a Were until the shifters came out of the... what? Woods?... a few months ago. It had shaken her, but it had also explained some things, like how bizarre Cecelia started acting like clockwork every month, and how her brother always insisted on coming to see her on full moons. Suddenly all her thinking about the moon when she arrived this morning made sense.

Turned out, family was so important to her, and she loved her little grandbaby so much, that she'd accepted it right away. I thought sadly of Sam's stepfather and his mother, about how what my brother did was keeping me away from him, and how so many families didn't react near as well. Poor Sam. Suddenly my heart ached for him.

She'd even joined the local chapter of Parents, Friends and Lovers of American Supernaturals. PFLAS was a support and advocacy group for the equal rights of vampires and weres, and fought hard against the Fellowship of the Sun. I was staggered. Gran would have loved her. I smiled at her.

"Now, I won't say it didn't ruffle my feathers a little when Mr. Northman appeared out of nowhere last week--he's quite something, isn't he?--and his fangs... well, that's not something I want to see again anytime soon," Bonnie was saying, almost distractedly, while thinking about what she was going to do about the full moon in two days. "But at least with me, you have nothing to worry about if you decide to light-tight that room."

"The question I have for you is, why are you thinking about this?" Then she paused and looked at me, raising an eyebrow the way Gran used to when she was clucking at me for some bad deed or other. But this wasn't just a bad deed, it was the worst of them all. "Seems to me just yesterday you were ready to move Mr. Northman out of here in a hurry."

Her eyes stayed kind but her words still bit into me. I nodded and looked down.

"I know," I said, my voice coming out harsher than I meant. I studied my fingers, which were now back to normal after getting really pruny in the water. I sucked my upper lip between my teeth and sucked on it, feeling the shame come rolling back. "I... I can't explain why I did that."

I looked up at her and despite myself, I begged her with my eyes to understand. "I get so confused."

I felt all the energy drain from my body. It was humiliating: To be in love and be so mad and so out of control all at the same time. How could a body want to keep him so close and also want to cast him out in the worst possible way, all at once? Damned if I knew. I just prayed it wouldn't happen again.

I hated the look of pity in Bonnie's eyes when I looked back up at her. And I hated even more how pitiful I felt to myself. Just as quickly as my energy left me, it came back full force. I was mad at this crazy depression, trauma, whatever it was that made me act so crazy. I was done with it. I was tired of being controlled by ghosts.

And just when I thought I couldn't get any more irritated I saw the one car I dreaded roll up the drive, kicking gravel behind its tires as it came to a stop.

I stood up in front of the window and put my hands on my hips. Despite my good Christian values, I smiled. This was a way I could blow off my anger safely.

I turned to Bonnie and pushed past her to the door, moving my fingers on the locks more quickly than I'd done in months. Bonnie put her hand on my back in question, but I turned and smiled at her slyly.

"I'll handle this."

**Bobby's POV**

_Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind, to Sookie and her aide. Kind and courteous, to that old hag and that white-trash whore. Fuck._

I gritted my teeth and hung my head, practicing my smile. I thought my teeth might crack. I swiped the manila envelope up off the passenger seat of my Taurus and snuck one last look at the master in all his glory. I didn't take the pictures out. I just knew I'd be watched and I couldn't afford a... situation. But I also couldn't let these photos go without one last look. Hell. I'm only human. My eyes lingered on what the shower stall glass wasn't covering.

I remembered that shoot. Master had allowed me to procure the lighting equipment and to spritz him with water throughout the shoot to keep the beads of water rolling down him plump. I watched as his... generous proportions.... grew throughout the shoot and his fangs ran down. He didn't spare a glance at me and I was getting rather uncomfortable in my pants myself. But this wasn't about me; it was about the master. My master.

I was content just to sit by and watch, holding his robe at the ready for when he was done. That is, I was content until I heard the master mutter the name of that blond trash at the end of the shoot.

Fucking whore. When I took this job, the last thing I thought I'd be doing is ferrying dirty pictures between my master and this piece of ass. I had a master's degree in business administration and had negotiated deals for the master before he came out of the coffin. Sure, I knew the job would involve ushering his meals home in the morning in some cases, and I'd done it with pleasure. The master had thought as little of them as I had. And at least they'd shown the proper gratitude for the attention he deigned to give them.

But that blond piece of tail shows up and he changes his whole existence for her. And she can't even bother to be grateful. She treats his attention like a mosquito in her ear. She rolls her eyes. She puts her hand on her hip. She scowls. She lips off like a spoiled child. She has no idea how lucky she is. And he goes and turns me into a butler for the fucking ingrate! She must have some pussy to keep the master so enthralled. It's the only thing I can figure. I balled my hands into fists, narrowly avoiding crushing the envelope and the photos inside. I slipped one from the pack and put it in my back pocket. The whore couldn't possibly need seven of them. What was she going to do? Paper her wall with them?

I smiled and slipped my finger into the envelope, pulling out one of the duplicates. I slid it into my back pocket. I wondered if I could get this photo blown up and reproduced... oh, a few hundred times. I could put it in my bathroom. Then _I_ could shower with him.

I threw my door open and huffed as I pulled myself out of the seat. Aging is a bitch. My knees ached. I bet a little of the master's blood would make that go away. I licked my lips. He'd never been so generous with me. He probably showered the bitch in his blood and she probably didn't have the good graces to be thankful. Classless whore.

I shook my head. _Get on your game, Burnham,_ I told myself as I lumbered up the front steps. _Kind and courteous. Kind and..._

"Bobby."

The little whore spit my name like it tasted like shit and was grinning at me like the cat that caught the canary. I guess she had. _Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind._ I stretched a smile across my teeth. My cheeks ached with effort..

My back protested but I lowered my head and nodded at her. "Miss Stackhouse." I turned and looked behind her at the little Hispanic aide's approach. "Bonnie."

She nodded at me and opened the door a little wider, taking it from the whore's hands. I wanted to chuckle when I saw that piece of trash tense up and hug her big tits up against the door jamb, but I caught myself in time. I couldn't help my smile.

"I've got a little something for you, Miss Stackhouse, _courtesy_ of the master." With a flick of the wrist, I threw the enveloped the few inches to her. She thought fast, faster than I thought her crippled body was capable, and caught the envelope between her hands with a clap. She visibly blushed when she saw the label on the envelope and then I couldn't hold back my chuckle. At least she had the good sense in that tiny brain of hers to recognize what a catch she had.

"And this is for you," said the aide, pulling my eyes from the master's whore. She pressed a file folder and a small thumb drive into my hands. I quickly opened the file to see the document and had to repress another laugh. Oh my day was getting better by the minute. At least the king could see how worthless she was. Maybe it would rub off on the master. I caught movement out of the corner of my eyes and flicked my gaze at Sookie. She had drawn herself up and she had on her angry face. I'd seen it more than once.

_Shit._

OK. Recover. _Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind._ To the whore and her aide. OK. I can do this. And then I can get the hell out of here and get back to fucking civilization. I turned back to the aide and bowed a little to her, thanking her profusely.

"Well, uh, you want anything else, Bobby?" asked the whore. And then she smiled, her eyes narrowing in a way I hated. "That is, anything you can _have_? Because there are a couple things in this house you'll never get your paws on."

Fucking bitch. I glanced over her shoulder and into the living room, trying to calm myself down before I said something I would regret--that would cause the master to _make_ me regret it. I took a deep breath and scanned the room. It was so shabby. She had no idea the squalor she was making the master live in. She had no...

My eyes widened and I clenched my jaw. I could feel my face turning red and I wanted more than anything to pull her long blond hair around my hand and pull it until she was kneeling on the porch in front of me, the way God intended. The way she probably was with the master every night, if he was the vampire I thought he was.

My eyes flicked back to the little scrap of fabric shoved under the couch. I couldn't believe it. I'd just delivered those panties a day ago!

I looked back at her, ready to lay into her, ready to be drained if that were the master's wish. Maybe then he'd finally turn me and keep me with him forever.

Sookie's loud cackling interrupted my train of thought and I looked to see her folded over in hysterics. I wanted to curse at her. I wanted to tell her all she was to the master was a fuck and a feed, a pet. But out of respect to my master, I refrained.

When she calmed herself from her hyena laughter, she stepped forward just a little and wiped the tears from her eyes. She placed one hand on my chest and patted it condescendingly. I huffed. She probably didn't even know the word.

"Don't... Don't worry, Bobby," she said through her chuckles. "There are lots more where those came from." She stepped a little closer, into my personal space and leveled her amused eyes at me.

"And I'm sure, when _your master_ destroys the rest of them," she said, drawling the title sarcastically. Bitch thought she was so much better than the rest of us. "He'll send you off to _fetch_ a few more."

And with that, she turned tail and flicked her wrist, and I found myself shut out, once again.

**

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A/N:** Next chapter: Dr. Gumby!

Also, full disclosure: I actually own that CD. Oh yes. I'm one of those freaky New Agey people in California. What can I say? So in the interest of giving credit where it's due, most of the language coming from the CD is from Dr. James E. Watson's CD "Healing from Grief and Finding Peace in Your Life." It even has a picture of a lotus flower on the cover. Oh yes. I've found it invaluable, actually.

So, what do you think? Lay it on me. Please review!


	25. Chapter 25: Three Little Words

**A/N:** Hi all. I'm so sorry it took me so long to get this chapter done and good enough that I was willing to share it with you. The good news is that I think this chapter rocks. A huge thank you goes out to my beta, moxie mo, who worked her ninja beta skills and helps me clarify what I really wanted this chapter to say. She's a whiz at gchat and gave lots of time and attention to the chapter. Thank you so much. :)

I hope you love it, and either way, I hope you comment. I'd love to hear what you think. This is the longest chapter yet, just fyi. And I hope you'll be happy to know that the next chapter is well on its way.

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**Disclaimer:** Dr. Gumby and Bonnie are mine. The rest belong to Charlaine Harris, who is in the doghouse with me for DITF. But that's a whole other discussion.

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Last time on Healing Blood:

_._

_My eyes flicked back to the little scrap of fabric shoved under the couch. I couldn't believe it. I'd just delivered those panties a day ago!_

_I looked back at her, ready to lay into her, ready to be drained if that were the master's wish. Maybe then he'd finally turn me and keep me with him forever._

_Sookie's loud cackling interrupted my train of thought and I looked to see her folded over in hysterics. I wanted to curse at her. I wanted to tell her all she was to the master was a fuck and a feed, a pet. But out of respect to my master, I refrained._

_When she calmed herself from her hyena laughter, she stepped forward just a little and wiped the tears from her eyes. She placed one hand on my chest and patted it condescendingly. I huffed. She probably didn't even know the word._

_"Don't... Don't worry, Bobby," she said through her chuckles. "There are lots more where those came from." She stepped a little closer, into my personal space and leveled her amused eyes at me._

_"And I'm sure, when your master destroys the rest of them," she said, drawling the title sarcastically. Bitch thought she was so much better than the rest of us. "He'll send you off to fetch a few more."_

_And with that, she turned tail and flicked her wrist, and I found myself shut out, once again._

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Chapter 25:Three Little Words

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I felt like jogging. I felt like Rocky at the top of those stairs in Philadelphia. I wanted to hold my arms over my head and pump them. I wanted to slap my ass in Bobby's face so he could see what his _master_ really wants. _That's right, Bobby, _I thought giddily._ You'll always be shut out. And taking one of these photos won't change that._ My muscles twitched like I had run a marathon. My heart beat hard in my temples. A laugh bubbled up from my chest like champagne. I felt light. I couldn't remember the last time I felt this... good. Away from Eric, anyway. I felt a hand on my back and that's when I realized that I was bouncing on the balls of my feet.

And that's when I realized I had just been on the porch. I bounced once, twice... My heels hit the floor.

"Oh." The thumping in my temples got louder. A breeze from that still-open window hit me and I swayed on my feet.

"Oh." I know. I was brilliant. I was trying to keep from blacking out. I closed my eyes to try to hold off the dizziness. I just got dark and swirly. I reached out blindly behind me, looking for the wall or the couch or... anything to steady me. Instead, I felt a hand on my forearm, another on my back. I sucked in a slow breath, fighting back the nausea that was making my tongue prickle.

I moved my feet backward automatically, feeling the pull from the hands on me, tugging. I'd just been giddy, hadn't I? Energized? Well, that went fast. I felt like I'd run a marathon again, but this time, I felt nauseated and exhausted and winded. And shaky.

"All right. That's enough excitement for today." The words drifted to me through the dark. Bonnie. Oh.

And then I didn't see anything but blackness.

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-V-V-

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My eyes fluttered opened and I squeezed them closed again. I opened them again. Nope. Still there. All five of him. Five smoldering, muscled, smooth and all-male Vikings staring back at me. Some shower-wet, others bed-ready, Bonnie must have arranged all my Eric photos in a little cluster under the calendar. I smiled despite myself as my temperature soared. A wet heat broke between my legs and if I rubbed them together... well, I'm only human. And a woman. Oh yes. And I felt more like a woman just looking at all those pictures of my man.

Or... well, shit.

Speaking of which... I looked around and found that Bonnie had put the little manila envelope on my bedside table. I sat up, feeling my heart beat a little faster. I licked my lips and slid my finger into the little opening. What I pulled out made the wet heat between my legs practically vibrate with happiness. My cheeks felt so hot I thought I might be able to cook an egg on them.

There he was, in all his glory, the tight ropes of his arm muscles raised over his head, hands hanging casually over the top of the shower door frame, his eyes bearing down on me, his fangs just bared. And the rest of him... really, really bare. All of him. And water beaded up on his chest hair and the hair that led south, running in little rivulets in the little crease between his pecs.

I thought about Bobby standing by the side with a spray bottle of water. I wondered if Eric would let me do that for him next year... if we were still together in a year.

I didn't want to think about that right now. Not when I wanted to lick that water off his nipple. Not when my mouth remembered what it felt like to lick up his smooth, firm skin, to bite his collarbone, and taste shower water on his skin.

Oh...

I closed my eyes and pressed the photo to my face, wishing I had something more substantial than this 4x6 to keep me company. I spread out and felt that dull ache again. My breath caught. God, Eric was so... Just _so much_. And before I could stop myself, I found myself wondering if I'd be capable of keeping him.

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-V-V-

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I had just settled my new picture of Eric among my growing assortment of soft-core vamp porn when my back stiffened. I wanted to reach over and toss a blanket over all of it. I wanted to hide under the covers. Oh God. Like I needed people thinking I'd created a little altar to my vampire.

"My dear Miss Stackhouse," said the soft, sweet voice belonging to the staticky brain behind me. "Things are going well for you, are they?"

Dammit, I refuse to cower in my own bedroom. Maybe outside, but not here. Not today. I threw my shoulders back and slapped my nervous smile on my face and turned around.

"Well hey there, Dr. Gu-uh, I mean, Dr. Eugenides," I said, my tone a little high for my own comfort, my smile straining my cheeks. "I didn't realize it was four already. I swear I don't know where the day goes."

_Shut up, Sookie. Shut up shut up shut up._

I closed my eyes and when I opened them, Dr. Gumby was assessing my little Eric shrine. I refused to hide my eyes or dip my chin. He was in my home and if he didn't like it, he could just leave. I crossed my arms over my chest, expecting... I don't know what. My skin prickled with nerves.

Instead, I settled on studying what the demon therapist was wearing this fine day. He was standing in the middle of my bedroom, leaning on the longest silver-tipped walking stick. Heck, I hadn't seen any kind of walking stick since Sid Matt Lancaster walked into the bar after presenting a case in Shreveport. He'd gotten himself dressed special. No short shirtsleeves for him that day. I found myself wondering if Dr. Gumby even owned any short-sleeve shirts. By the way his brow was already beading with sweat, I figured he must. His house must be positively arctic. In his long, grey suit, a little purple paisley pocket square sticking out from his blazer, he looked far too dapper for this room. Hell, for the whole of Bon Temps.

By the time I got to Dr. Gumby's eyes, he wasn't looking at the photos anymore. He was looking at me softly, a small, sweet smile on his face. His eyes were so warm I couldn't help but relax my back just a little.

"Ah my dear Miss Stackhouse," he said, his tone soft and buttery. I surprised myself by thinking it didn't sound at all faked. "It has been quite an eventful few days for you, has it not?"

I looked at him, confused. And then I turned to look out the window and closed my eyes. I swayed a little on my feet as everything came back in a rush: The hammering, the light-tighting people, Bill. Oh Lord, I hoped Eric hadn't done anything to Bill. I saw that look Eric shot him. The recorder, Patsy, Bubba, Eric leaving... Eric coming home. _Eric coming home._ My mind blanked, remembering how he looked at me when he barged right back in like he owned the place, like he... belonged here. With me. I refused to cry. But I couldn't stop myself from blushing. And then today: The meditation. The window. Bobby. The porch. I'd stepped on the porch. I smiled, this time a real smile, remembering what it felt like to step outside for the first time in months, to feel fresh air on my face.

Sweet Jesus, that was just three days! I sagged and the mattress caught my weight. No wonder I was exhausted.

I knew I should offer Dr. Gumby a little something to drink, but I retreated to bed instead.

I heard a rustling to the side, and glanced to see Dr. Gumby had curled himself into the little chair the corner. The wood framing groaned a little under his weight.

Well, now or never. I gave one last glance at the wall o' Erics, and pulled the quilt up over my hips, bracing myself for whatever Dr. Gumby planned to dredge up today.

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-V-V-

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"So tell me, Miss Stackhouse, how are you? Last we spoke you were quite distressed by the construction in the house."

"I went outside today," I blurted, excited to see he reaction.

I wasn't disappointed. His normally impassive face quirked in a smile and his eyes glittered. He grinned closed-mouthed at me.

"Well, that is excellent news, Miss Stackhouse! Do tell me, what made the difference for you? What allowed you to make that leap?"

I sat up straight and it all came out in a rush. I told him all about how helpful the CD had been, about Bonnie's hand on my back, about the crack in the window and then Bobby's appearance.

"... And before I knew it, I was standing outside, taunting Bobby." I smiled, remembering how red he'd turned, and my fingers glided along the silky edge of the blanket. I smiled genuinely. It felt good to be able to tell someone all this stuff without worrying about them going off the handle. I lowered my voice conspiratorially, even though I knew no one else could hear us. Bonnie'd left after bringing me a sandwich. "He's got a crush on Eric, you know. He was there-" I pointed at the calendar on the wall. "-when Eric had that photo taken. He hates me... but not just because he's jealous. He hates me because he thinks I don't fall all over Eric enough like some fangbanger." I rolled my eyes. "And he stole a picture of Eric. I could get rid of him, but I don't want to be responsible for him getting fired or, worse."

I drew myself up tall, thinking how proud I was of the restraint I had around Bobby, even after all he'd thought of me in his head. So I was shocked with the long, tall doc's next words.

"It is very generous of you to not, as you say, get rid of this Bobby. Tell me, do you feel that responsible for everyone with whom you come into contact?"

His mouth was set in a relaxed smile, his eyebrows slightly raised as if he couldn't wait to hear my response. Trouble was, I didn't have one. Not right away, anyway. _Responsible?_

"What? No... I mean, I hate Bobby and all... he's an asshole-pardon my French. But I couldn't live with myself if something I said caused his death. These vamps... they've got a hair trigger when it comes to anger. You of all people should know that."

I thought back to how Eric had come storming into our couple's counseling session, sword sharpened and at the read. Then my mind ran and I didn't like the alleys it was heading down. I thought of Longshadow and the missing money—how quick he lunged at me. I swallowed hard. I thought… Oh Lord… I didn't want it, but the memory of Uncle Bartlett's death the day after I'd revealed that particular bit of my history to Bill came flooding back anyway. I'd never tell Eric if I could get away with it.

"That is very noble of you, Miss Stackhouse."

"Not really," I muttered without thinking.

He raised his eyebrows in question. I shrugged.

The silence grew longer and I got more irritated. What did he want me to say? _Just because I haven't used my little disability to turn into a monster doesn't make me noble?_ That's how I felt. I let the silence drag on."Is it not noble to put another's life above your own comfort?" He paused and looked at me and I almost flinched from the look of pity in his eyes. "You seem very uncomfortable. To carry that weight of all those lives on your shoulders must be quite heavy indeed."

The pressure in my jaw liked to have split it, I was grinding my teeth so hard. I looked out the window and pulled my arms tight around my ribs. I was tired of this line of questioning. I was tired of having to explain myself. I was just… tired.

I rubbed my forehead hard between my fingers. "You grow up hearing who's cheating on who, who's dying of cancer and who thinks your boobs are fake and you learn to get tight-lipped real quick. There's no nobility to it."

"Ah," he said softly, his eyes growing gentle. "What might happen if you didn't keep the secrets, Miss Stackhouse?"

I almost laughed in disgust. "Look. You don't get it, all right? It's not like I _want_ to know this stuff. But for the longest time I couldn't keep it out. I learned the hard way that what people think is private. I have to have… rules."

The rules. I'd come up with them after one too many times of people calling me Crazy Sookie when I answered their thoughts instead of their words. It was second nature to me now. I rarely thought about it, except when big, shiny demon therapists who looked like clay toys brought it up. I shot him the stink-eye. For the longest time, I only had one rule: Keep the secrets of every loud-mouthed brain I came across. Don't let on that you've heard it. Smile big.

Then I'd met the vamps and the supes and the rules grew: Don't tell Eric about Bobby or Uncle Bartlett or Hunter-and certainly don't tell Eric that I'd read a vamp mind or two, including his. Keep Niall in the dark about Eric and vice versa. My head hurt under the pressure of keeping all these confidences.

"And vampires are secretive by nature," the doc said, slanting his head to the side like he was sliding a piece of a puzzle into place. I rolled my eyes, hating it. Whatever he was seeing wasn't good. "More secrets to keep."

Now I did laugh. That was one of the big rules: Don't press too hard on the vamps in my life to tell me anything. They weren't going to do it anyway and maybe I didn't want to know. I looked down. I sure didn't want to know what Eric thought… of me. Of this. I looked around the room.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that, after a lifetime of keeping secrets, I drew men who had a boatload of their own. I had one of those sickening moments of watching myself from the outside. Geez, it was like I was becoming one of them, without the daytime death: All secrets and subterfuge (today's word of the day).

I sniffed. I felt unaccountably lonely. I'd probably never have a life where I felt totally and completely comfortable with anyone else. I'd always have to keep my guard up. I'd thought vamps were the answer when I'd discovered I couldn't read their minds. Now I knew different. I shivered. I could never let my guard down. I could never relax, not really. I had to protect the people in my life from one another. From me. I swallowed. Try as I might, I couldn't raise my eyes to Dr. Gumby's.

I sniffed again and shook my head, trying to break free of all these morbid thoughts. All I'd ever wanted was someone I could tell my day to and cuddle up with at the end of it. I'd never really wanted to tell someone everything. I wondered why now that seemed so important.

I shook myself. For now, I had Eric, and he was a pretty good listener, when he wasn't horny. What did I have to complain about?

"Yes, my dear, it is quite all right to feel sadness. That is quite a lot of responsibility to take on."

He had no idea. He paused until I looked up at him. Lord, what he must be seeing. His eyes were gentle, betraying no judgment.

"May I ask you something?"

I was sure I wouldn't like whatever it was, but this was what I was here for after all. I shrugged.

"You believe yourself to be strong enough to stand up to the vampires in your life, yes?" I didn't know about that, but I knew I had to anyway. "And you stood up quite admirably to the fairies." I felt even less sure about that. I shrugged. I wasn't going to say anything about that. "You are quite strong." His head was cocked to the side slightly and his hands where cradling his fountain pen. He was studying me with that gentle look in his eye and something about it made me want to pull the covers up around me.

"Do you believe that Bobby and the others you meet are not as strong as you? Would they be unable to stand up to the vampires in your life if you let them take responsibility for their own decisions?"

I shook my head to the side slightly and furrowed my brows. What was he talking about? I didn't take responsibility for other people's decisions. I...

Huh.

"How old would you guess this Bobby is?"

I shrugged. "I don't know... 30? Thirty-five?"

"So he is your elder?"

I laughed at the old fashioned language. "Um, I guess."

"And he voluntarily took this job with your vampire, correct?"

"I don't know his deal."

"But he stays. And you say he is infatuated with your vampire, yes?"

I nodded.

"And he knows of what your vampire is capable. He's worked closely with him."

I nodded again. I was starting to feel like a bobblehead.

"And he's aware of your unique talent?"

"Uh huh," I said, just to mix it up.

"So one can assume that if Bobby knew all this about your vampire and still chose to take the photo, that he was assuming the risk that went along with it."

"I guess."

"And yet you still feel as if you must protect him from his own foolish decision."

I blinked and started to feel that coil of irritation flare in my chest. "Well yeah, but he doesn't deserve to die because he's an asshole."

"Of course, Miss Stackhouse. Of course," he smiled. "However, he's an adult and is prepared to take responsibility for his adult decisions-just as you are an adult and responsible for your own decisions. It is none of your business how he is treated, really."

Now I was angry. "But vampire justice is different than human justice. If I run to Eric and tell him Bobby took one of these photos, Eric wouldn't just fire him. He'd drain him. If I don't keep it from him, Bobby would die and it would be on my conscience. Just like if I didn't make a deal with Eric that I would only help him read human minds if they turned the guilty parties over to the police, those humans would be dead. I won't have that on my conscience." _Enough people have died for me,_ I thought. I was leaning forward now, and I knew my voice was getting louder. "I won't be responsible for it."

"But you're not, Miss Stackhouse."

I couldn't believe him. He must come from a truly different world if he didn't believe that what I did had serious consequences for the people around me. "Yes, I am."

"No, Miss Stackhouse. You aren't."

"Yes!"

He didn't answer me, and I was ready to fight now. "Yes I am, Dr. Eugenides. Yes I am. I can't have people dying. I can't know that something I did made it easier for them to be killed." Even as I was saying it, I didn't understand why I was defending Bobby of all people. I'd be happy to see him drained some days, especially when he was thinking those hateful things at me.

"I can't... I can't know that I didn't do everything I could to keep them safe."

By now I was folded in half and stabbing my finger down into the quilt to make my point. And I was shaking. Why was I shaking?

Dr. Gumby sat back, eyes sparking.

"Who else couldn't you keep safe, Miss Stackhouse? Who did you lose?"

And just like that, the rage whooshed out of my body, replaced by stinging, paralyzing emptiness. I saw them. Clear as day. Driving down the gravel of this very driveway, waving happily. I'd been huddled with Jason and Gran under the umbrella, and I'd reached my hand out to catch a few raindrops on my fingers.

"Oh God." A keening sob came up from my throat. "Oh!"

My chest liked to have torn open. Daddy's big blue eyes, crinkles at the corners, smiling. Momma looking relieved, one hand on Daddy's neck, holding him close. She was thinking how romantic the rain seemed to her. Daddy was thinking of all the routes he could take to Monroe, where they were headed to do some shopping.

The aching in my chest seemed to grab all the muscles in the rest of my body, and soon I was curled in on myself, protecting my breaking heart. Something felt very wrong. I felt it all over again. I should have known.

"I should have stopped them from going..." I croaked out. "I should have known... Somehow I should have been able to tell something bad would happen. If... If I'd had any sense, I could have used... used my disability. Somehow. I should have been able to..."

The quilt was blurry and then my vision flickered back to black. I pressed my face against the quilt, remembering pulling it to my nose when I was 7, remembering wanting to disintegrate into the thread, wanting to spread out and disappear into it. Remembered it being dark and light and not moving from this bed. Remembered Gran's hand on my hair, rhythmically stroking it. Remembered knowing nothing was ever going to be OK again.

"Who, Sookie? Who are you remembering right now?" The voice swam up to me from somewhere far away, barely piercing the shell of my grief. I was swimming in images: Of my arms and legs being shoved into a new black dress. Of the house being filled with people. Of the looks of pity on everyone's faces and the spiteful, mean thoughts in their heads. Of confusion. Of begging Gran to take me home to see my parents. Of screaming at her when she wouldn't. Of not getting it. Of insisting that they were coming back for me. That I wasn't really alone. That I hadn't... I hadn't failed.

Dr. Gumby, bless him, let me stay curled like that for a long while. When I could breathe regular again, I couldn't stop my mouth.

"There were no... bodies." God... to think of them as bodies instead of as Daddy and Momma... I choked back the tears and pressed my faced to the quilt, my body crumpled in an awkward position I was too tired to move from. "There was no... good-bye. Not ever. Even with Gran..." I swallowed down the metallic bile that threatened my gag reflex. "Even with Gran, I'd seen her. I'd gotten to mourn her.

"But with Momma and Daddy... One day they were there. They were bringing us treats. And then they vanished. I was 7. For weeks afterwards, I'd wait by the door, insisting that Gran take me back to our house because I knew... Momma and Daddy would be home any time. And I was sure they'd be mad at me for being away so long. Heaven knew I was mad at them for disappearing like that."

The cold emptiness filled me again and I grew restless. Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea, I didn't want to relive this. But I couldn't stop now that I'd started. I couldn't stop... remembering.

"And my disability didn't help. It should have." I shivered, a blast of rage running through me. "I knew all kinds of things I didn't want to know. Why couldn't... couldn't I have known that? Known something that would have kept them off that bridge?"

I didn't wait for an answer. I knew there wasn't one. "I just couldn't... understand. Where were they? Gran was smart enough not to lie to me. She knew I'd know anyway what really happened. But I didn't understand what she was talking about." I blinked my eyes rapidly, remembering how disorienting it had been.

I swept my hands over the quilt, savoring the coolness.

"But still, when I heard in her head that Momma and Daddy were gone for good, just like Pop-Pop, even when we visited the tombstones in the little cemetery out there, I didn't get it. Finally after a month, I'd sat Gran down and asked her to hold me and I'd started asking her questions. With the touch, I could hear every little thought that whizzed through her head. A lot of it I don't remember. It didn't make sense to me then. But I remember thinking real hard and trying to come up with questions that would explain it to me. Where were Momma and Daddy? Why hadn't they come home yet? Were they mad at me? Was it Jason's fault?" I remembered climbing around inside their old Ford station wagon two days before and leaving my Barbie behind.

"I had this one doll," I told the doc. "I lost her. For some reason I was real mad that she was gone. I tried to ask Gran where my Barbie was now. I wondered if maybe it had somehow rolled under the seat and gotten caught under the gas pedal. Maybe that's why they'd flown off the bridge. Maybe that's why they couldn't get away from the water. Maybe..."

... And then I just started blubbering. I remembered it and felt myself tense up, a wall of muscle closing around me, protecting me. My teeth scraped together and I felt it down my spine. I'd wailed into Gran's side. "As long as I live, I'll never forget the smell of talcum powder and Jean Nate that Gran used to wear, combined with a faint tang of sweat from where I was hooked under Gran's arm." To this day the smell of Jean Nate makes me want to dry heave.

I forced myself to open my eyes and look out at the dimming afternoon light. "I finally asked the question I'd been asking myself. Didn't they love me anymore?

"And because I was so close to her, and she was petting my hair and holding my hand, I could hear the God's honest truth: Daddy loved me. He always had. Images had flashed in Gran's head of Daddy beaming at Gran, holding a baby with a wisp of white-blond hair, all pink and wiggly. I could only figure that had been me. I'll never forget that image. It's more real to me than the pictures in our photo albums. I could feel from Gran in that moment how much Daddy had loved me.

"And Momma, well, I learned in that moment that Gran had never really liked her. She'd thought her selfish, desperate, and not good enough for her boy. She'd thought her small for being so scared of my disability and dragging me to experts, trying to fix me. And she'd hated how Momma had resented the hell out of me for stealing Daddy's attention. It's funny. I had spent years thinking that I'd done something wrong and that's why Momma was mad at me, explaining away the things she said in her head. But hearing it in Gran's head, I suddenly knew that what I'd seen and heard had been true. Momma had hated me.

"I could also see that they were never coming back. Gran's thoughts had become sparse when she talking about it, interrupted by great waves of sadness. She'd been talking all sweet and soothing, but in her head it was bleak. I knew for sure then that they were gone for good and I was never going to see them again.

"I stopped demanding Gran bring me back to my folks place after that. I finally unpacked my bag and my toys into my bedroom. I helped Gran pick up the house. I gave up."

"Ah," said the demon therapist, startling me. I'd forgotten he was even in the room. I glanced up at him and his face was hidden by the growing shadows in the room. I knew I should turn on the light, but I kind of liked it this way. Darker. Maybe he couldn't see me so well, either. "You'd always known more than you should for your age. You'd wanted to help. Is that right?"

I craned my neck to look up at him. It hurt a little but I didn't mind it. "If I could," I said in a small voice. I closed my eyes, trying to reject the images that came to my mind.

"That is a very kind impulse, my dear. Very kind. You have strong moral character." His voice was soft, almost a whisper, and filled with admiration. My heart lurched. I tried not to think of the shotgun and Debbie Pelt and all the rest of the people who'd died on my watch. A deep, burning shame flooded me that I hadn't been able to tamp down.

"It must have been quite difficult to be privy to all the suffering of the adults around you. Tell me, did you ever act on it? Did you try to make things better?"

I pulled myself up slowly, wiping my cheek with the back of one hand. I coughed, trying to dislodge the phlegm from my throat.

"Only when I was real little, but it went bad. They didn't know why I was hugging them. Or they looked angry or scared of me when I'd try to say something nice to them."

Dr. Gumby furrowed his brow and tilted his head the other way. "That must have been very hard for you when you were only trying to help."

I looked down and cleared my throat again pointlessly. "Yeah, well, I learned early to stay out of people's lives even if I couldn't stay out of their heads. What they say about shooting the messenger is true."

"Except you don't stay out of their lives, it seems. You weigh yourself down with their decisions, hoping that if you can control the flow of information you can keep them alive."

Before I could react, my head turned at the sound of the door opening. And then my brain locked up for a totally different reason. Eric was standing there-all 6'4" of him-stark raving naked. And then he turned to Dr. Gumby, bared his fangs and hissed.

Glancing between the two of them, I started shaking. I knew what was going to happen. So I did the only think I could think of. I launched myself at him.

.

**Eric's POV**

.**  
**

_My Sookie._ My eyes flipped open and I could smell her essence all over me. She'd marked me. She was mine.

By the gods, she'd been magnificent last night. So lusty. So strong. So willing. Every muscle in my body longed to claim her again. And again. I shot up from the tiny space and stalked toward her room.

I pushed the door open without hesitation and halted instantly. My dearest one was huddled over in the corner of the bed while the callous demon doctor splayed relaxed in the corner chair. The room was flooded with the sweet, salty scent of my Bonded's tears.

Rage pooled in my chest and demanded vengeance for his assault on my Bonded's delicate psyche. Why was he hurting her? Why was she leaking? I felt a rumble building in my chest. The muscles in my shoulders bunched and my eyes narrowed. I curled my lip back from my fangs and a deep growl filled the room.

It was the briefest of warnings, and then I aimed myself at the demon and pounced. But quickly I was joined by my Bonded, who had apparently flung herself into the fray at the same moment. She was screaming and beating at me, and yelling at the therapist as well.

"Oh Lord have mercy, back off! The two of you _back off_!" I glanced down at my dear one and her face was tear stained and her eyes wild. That wildness. That loosening in her. I turned back to the demon. He was making it worse. I brushed Sookie away. This was between me and the demon.

I was only vaguely aware of this diatribe, as my attention was drawn to the searing pain in my chest. I looked down. The demon had placed the silver-tipped end of his cane against my flesh, and the burning focused my attention to a point. Before I knew what I was doing, I hissed and knocked the can from his hand. The silver took my flesh with it as it went. The tearing made me snarl. In an instant, I had the demon against the wall, holding him by his lapels.

"You dare bring silver into my nest? You disturb my Bonded?"

Before I could rip into the demon's sweaty flesh, I heard a wet sob from my side.

I turned to my Bonded and pulled her against me. She did not smell of me anymore. I did not care for this. I tugged her up and captured her skull with the back of my hand, bringing our faces together in a crushing kiss. She struggled against me until our lips met. Then she was still and rigid. "Mine," I said in my old language, studying her wide, frantic eyes. "Fear not."

I turned back to the demon, still holding my beloved against me, away from him. To my surprise, the demon merely smiled at me.

"Mr. Northman, it's a pleasure to see you again," he said, affecting a tiny bow. I found I could not lower my lip, could not stop myself from hissing. "I beg your forgiveness for having to use the silver against you. I swear to you it was only defensive. I know that in your newly risen state you are highly excitable and I knew seeing your mate in distress would cause a natural protective instinct to rise in you."

I studied him suspiciously. I tightened my grip on the cane and felt it splinter a bit in my palm. Assessing the room and the demon's possessions, I felt confident he had no other weapons on him. And as my Bonded wanted me to stop, I would hold back. I nodded once, tersely.

With my muscles tensed as they were, it was difficult to turn to Sookie, to take my eyes from my enemy but I did it. When I did, I had to repress a smile. There was my Sookie-my Sookie, the stubborn, intransigent one with the tiny scowl on her face and ready to take on a combined total of 400 lbs. and 12 feet of vampire and demon. She is magnificent. I love her. I wanted to eject the demon, throw her over my shoulder and take her on the bed all over again. I want to part her legs and bury my nose in her dark blond curls. I want to lick and suckle her until she's begging for my cock. I want to tease her with it and then fill her with it until we're both screaming. I want it all. Right now.

She did not take kindly to my mood shift, however. She glanced from me to the demon and pushed against me until I agreed to release her. The danger between the demon and I had passed for now. She flung her arms in the air and lowered her brows over her beautiful eyes. Her chin quivered.

"This! this right here is why I have to keep secrets! He didn't even _ask_ me. He just barges in naked as the day is long and _attacks_ you. _I'm just crying_. Imagine if it were something worse,"she slapped my arm, a small sting prickling across my bicep. "You think I don't think other people can take care of themselves? Look at him! He treats me like I'm some china doll!"

And then her sobs grew quieter. I leveled a warning look at the demon and then turned to look at my lover.

I'm not safe," she whimpered, sagging back into the mattress. "People aren't safe... because of me..."

Her energy seemed to drain from her by the end of her small speech. And what energy she lost seemed to filter into my muscles, straining them further.

"Lover?" My voice was soft. Too soft for the demon to hear. Perhaps I would kill him later after all."Sookie, I don't want you to fear me."

She looked up at me and a heavy weight looked out from her eyes. She didn't answer, just stumbled to the bed and got under the covers, folding up on her side. The next instant I was pressed against her, stroking her face, whispering to her in my old language words that I recalled soothed me. She curled herself to me but shook a little. She refused to open her eyes to look at me, even when I brushed my fingertips over her cheeks and brows.

.

**Dr. Gumby's POV**

.

Ah, this is excellent. The vampire couldn't have come at a more opportune time-though I would prefer he were clothed. I do so appreciate fine tailoring. And his display now, as he comforted his Bonded was even more interesting. His large, muscled body loomed over hers, pressed against it, curling around her, shielding her from my view. Just like with his obsessive stroking of his Bonded's neck at our last couples session, this movement had many meanings. He was asserting his ownership of the woman to me, the supposedly rival male in the room, by his sexual display of prowess and his unrepentant nakedness. He was protecting her with his body, holding her precious. And he was crowding her, intimidating her, seeking reassurance that she accepted him as a man, as a vampire and as her mate. I wondered if this move would be welcomed or if it would backfire and easily overwhelm her. From what I have seen in the past, it could go either way with this part-human telepath.

But as I studied the telepath, her face was nestled in her vampire's broad chest, her arms curled in on herself protectively. Far from rejecting his overbearing behavior, she pressed herself against him further, eyes closed tightly.

I jotted a note.

I gave the telepath a chance to object to his intimidation. When she didn't, I interjected.

"Ah, Mr. Northman-"

"Leave us," he growled, sparing the shortest of glances my direction.

I did not move, merely continued to observe. It was rare for a vampire of his strength and what I assumed to be considerable age allowed such a private display to be made in front of an outsider. I would take the opportunity where it presented itself.

He was a good mate, I thought, at least judging by his behavior in my presence. He had all the proper responses: He was mindful of his mate, even to the point of all his attention revolving around her. He demonstrated violent but appropriate protective instincts. Even under physical duress he did not back down. He must be quite the warrior indeed. And now that she was disturbed, he likewise did not hesitate to offer her solace. Gentle and aggressive, in equal measure.

My attention shifted back to the telepath. Neither when he was in full attack posture, nor now when he was very nearly forcing his tenderness upon her did she demonstrate fear of him. She felt safe with her vampire, I realized, despite her look of terror moments before.

The curled in arms, the closed eyes… Perhaps she was wishing the world away? Her memories? Wishing to stay with her vampire and jettison reality?

Or perhaps she was blocking from her own conscious mind her yearning for the vampire?

Interesting.

She had fear, of course, and often expressed it. But it wasn't truly of her vampire, though he was violent and dangerous. No, her fear and her rage were global in nature. They reached into every part of her life. And after hearing of the loss of her parents-and then of her grandmother who raised her and of the others who had perished in fighting to protect her-I could see why. I could see why this small mostly human woman warred with herself. Her natural instinct towards intimacy butted right up against her deep fear of abandonment and overresponsibility and guilt. That misery in her eyes was well-earned. Unnecessary, but well-earned.

Which made me think...

"Pardon me, Mr. Northman," I said again, a little louder this time. I could see the vampire would not relent until his telepath seemed on the mend. "Ah, Miss Stackhouse, I believe this is a perfect opportunity to work on many of the things we have discussed this afternoon."

Initially she simply laid there limply. Her eyes had flickered open but were unseeing. She was deep in thought, or perhaps deep in memory. She shivered once, twice and then turned to lay on her back and look up at her vampire. Carefully, tentatively, she reached up and touched his cheek. Swiftly, the vampire took her hand and held it to his lips, his eyes never leaving her face.

"Are you well, dear one? I can eliminate him."

She shuddered at his suggestion, but she needn't have. I am well prepared for a challenge. She blinked and a light trail of tears traveled from her eyes to her hairline. "What?" she said, her voice quiet. "N-no. Please don't, baby." The vampire stiffened at the nickname but did not object. Interesting.

Slowly, she struggled to sit up and the vampire watched her studiously, scanning her for signs of injury. I had seen it many times before. Though not physically wounded, humans could maintain emotional scars for years. This was hardest for supes to cope with—especially vampires, who could heal wounds, but only visible ones. The vampire's face became a mask, a sure sign he was cursing his powerlessness.

She cleared her throat and then looked over her vampire with clearer eyes. She tugged at the covers and pulled them up against her chest, as if to cover herself. "Good gracious, Eric, you're naked! Go." She shoved at him, unable to move him. "Get up. Go get dressed." Another shove, and this time the vampire smiled. "I'll let you know when I'm done here."

The vampire laughed but otherwise was unmoved. He seemed almost relieved at her pique.

She pushed his chest one more time, and though her movement was rough and tone stern, a small smile played at her lips. I inhaled slowly. Ah interesting. She finds his incorrigibility... arousing. On the last shove, she held her hands to him, gingerly touching the fading pink spot where my cane burned him. She looked down at it and her body did a small jerk, as if she was holding herself back from pressing her face, her lips to it. For his part, the vampire was too surprised to hide the confusion on his face, at least for a seemed torn between leaning into her and removing himself from her grasp-a sure sign that he was... what?... confused? No, touched by her impulse. Yes, touched.

Yes, this is a couple very much in love.

I glanced at the collection of erotic photos of the vampire and cleared my throat softly. As a supe myself, I don't mind nudity, however now is not the time-not when Miss Stackhouse was close to a breakthrough.

Luckily, Miss Stackhouse broke the stare. She pushed at his chest one more time and scowled at him, now all trace of humor gone, her face flushing with embarrassment. I jotted a note: _Recurring rejection?_

"I mean it," she said, crossing her arms over her chest and looking away from him. "Get out of here and don't come back until you've covered yourself. That might be OK in your house, but there are rules here, and the first one is that you put on your shorts for company."

She glanced at me apologetically and then covered her eyes.

The vampire glared down at her, tracing his hand over her side, checking, again, that she was well.

"No." His voice was a low rumble in his chest, a tone reserved for warnings.

Her head whipped around, anger sparking in her eyes. "Eric. Now."

I withheld a laugh as the vampire bared his fangs and Miss Stackhouse... rolled her eyes. I jotted_: Disagreement as foreplay..._

When I looked up again, the vampire was challenging his telepath with a level stare.

Finally, the fairy groaned in frustration and slid off the bed, away from the vampire. She began marching toward the bedroom door.

"Fine. I'll leave the room at the same time you do. Happy?"

She stood just outside the door and held her arms out from herself in exasperation. She raised her eyebrows.

"Very good, Miss Stackhouse," I said, the pair of them swiveling to look at me, as if they were surprised I was still among them. "Mr. Northman, I would be honored if you would join us this evening. I believe an impromptu couple's session is in order."

I smiled as he bared his fangs at me now. I rose to my full height, grasping my walking stick from where he had placed it against the bed. I gave him what I hoped was an ingratiating smile.

"Mr. Northman, I believe your Bonded could use your assistance this evening. Would you do us the honor?"

The vampire rose slowly from the bed in a fluid, catlike motion, his eyes never leaving mine. He stalked toward the door, shoulders back and eyes flicking from me to his woman.

He never answered me. He simply stepped into his Bonded, pulled her to him and kissed her long and hard, grinding his obvious arousal into her belly. The kiss went on and on and the telepath quickly moved to her toe tips and then stepped on his feet to get closer to him, pressing her body more firmly into his. I do believe that had I not been present, she would have climbed him and wrapped her legs around him.

I cleared my throat, but the vampire would not release her, clearly feeling the need to stake his claim again. It surprised me and I chuckled. I did not take Mr. Northman for an insecure man. I patiently took the pocket square from my blazer and blotted my forehead and neck. These Louisiana winters were far too balmy for my taste. Perhaps soon the telepath would allow me to open a window. It would be an improvement for her as well as for me.

Finally, the vampire pulled back and stepped into the bedroom across the hall. Miss Stackhouse weaved on her feet, absently brushing her hair back and touching her lips.

.

**Sookie's POV**

.

Oh… wow. Oh my.

My vision blurred and then came back into focus. That's when I noticed I was weaving a little from my spot in the hall. I smiled and touched my lips with my fingertips. I smiled and chuckled softly. Wow. He's…. wow.

Too bad the doctor is still here. It's a shame to cover all of that lean muscle and burgeoning manhood, as my romance novels would say.

I chuckled but caught myself. Oh. The doctor. My eyes swung around to him. He was still standing there, hands primly on his walking stick, soft smile on his face. My face felt so red I thought my cheeks would burst into flames. But under Dr. Gumby's eagle eye I straightened my back and looked at him. He's in my bedroom after all, and if I want to kiss my… whatever Eric is, then I am damn well going to. I narrowed my eyes and before I knew it, my hands were on my hips. I wanted to tell him not to give me that look. He wasn't my Momma.

But then I thought of my Momma and I… I needed a break.

I felt the scowl fall from my face and my head hurt. I… I had to get away from him, from those eyes that I swear were interpreting everything I did. I turned from him and wavered for a second.

"Um… I.. I'll be right back." He just nodded and refused to look away from me. I felt irritated at that and I didn't know why. "Eric needs a blood before the night gets too long."

And trying not to run, I high-tailed it to the kitchen and away from Dr. Gumby's knowing eyes.

.

-V-V-

.

My heartbeat returned to normal as I filled the glass of water in the sink. The microwaved hummed as it did its thing next to me. Good gravy, what was all that? First Eric attacked my therapist, then he was cuddling. Then he laid that whopper of a kiss on me that made me forget where I was. OK, so maybe my heartbeat sped up again right then. I took a deep gulp of the water, hoping it could cool the parts of me that were near to overheating.

I looked out the window and scanned the trees. I was glad I could move around again, but maybe I'd never stop watching the trees. Just like the collapsing at the sound of the floorboards, it was something I did before I thought about it. And I did it all the time.

I couldn't shake the heaviness in my chest that told me that if I'd just scanned the trees more carefully that time a month ago, I woudn't need the demon therapist or the meditation CDs or any of the rest of this. I wouldn't be dredging up my parents' death. I'd be at Merlotte's right now, filling a drink order for Catfish or watching Jason hit on half the women in the bar. I could imagine the sounds and smell of the bar: The scraping of pints on the shellacked bar top, the sloshing of drinks when old Jane Bodehouse had past her limit, the smell of stale beer and cigarettes and sweat.

Well, no point in thinking of that, I thought as I looked around the trees. Absently, I sent my mind out, looking for who was out there. Quickly I discovered there was a vampire in the trees. The impulse to cut and run hit me like I'd been decked over the head with a beer bottle, but I held my ground and tried hard not to make a sound. I didn't need any more of Eric's hero act. Not tonight. I didn't think my nerves could take it.

I breathed deep. It was probably Bill, watching over me. Yeah. I'm sure that's it. I strained my neck… just to make sure. As the microwave dinged, I about collapsed, but for a whole other reason.

Out there in the trees was Bubba. I guess he'd seen me, because he stepped forward enough for me to eyeball him at the edge of the security light. I smiled and waved, almost laughing. Almost, because Bubba held up a cat in his left hand and smiled a fangy smile.

Oh. Oh my.

I turned to the microwave, desperate not to think about Bubba's dinner. Guess it was time to bring dinner to another vampire.

.

**Dr. Gumby's POV**

.

The room was dark and I'd just returned to my seat from turning on a bedside lamp when the vampire returned. He was clad in a pair of worn jeans and a kelly green t-shirt. No shoes. His hair was finger-brushed and fell in great clumps around his eyes. And those eyes looked right past me and landed on the little cluster of photos of himself in the corner. I didn't dare move. I wanted to observe how he took to all the photos being arranged in—well, I could only call it a shrine.

The vampire froze halfway into the room and a broad smile spread across his face, crinkling the skin at the corners of his eyes. Those eyes moved quickly, assessing each photo in turn, and if I didn't know better I'd think the vampire was crowing. He was proud of his physique, and perhaps even more proud that his mate had chosen to display the photos in the company of other men.

His brows furrowed for but a second as he scanned through the photos one last time and then his eyes landed somewhere and I turned my head unobtrusively to see what had caught his attention. To my surprise, it wasn't an image of the vampire in repose. It was a paperback, barely cracked, with the image of a muscled warrior on the cover, a lithe woman wrapped around the man's leg.

I looked back quickly to the vampire's face to see if I could ascertain the meaning. In a flash so quick I nearly missed it, the vampire's face softened and grew nearly… mournful. He assessed the photos again and the expression stayed in place. He glanced out at the dark night. And then his face resumed its steely imperviousness. It was as if nothing had happened. He crossed the rest of the room and laid his long legs out on the bed. He turned to me and nodded, a silent warning.

I lowered my head kindly. Interesting. The vampire was conflicted: He could control his woman with his body—but that body was useless during daylight. Or that was the impression I got from his quick glance out the window. When I looked up, the vampire was smoothing his hand along the telepath's quilt, breathing deeply. I do believe if I weren't present, the vampire would have rolled himself on the quilt, absorbing his woman's scent into his skin. Yes. Quite in love.

.

-V-V-

.

The vampire and the telepath sat across from each other in comfortable silence. Or as comfortable as a couple can be at the beginning of a counseling session. I smiled sympathetically at them. It didn't seem to matter what species they were—all couples sitting down for therapy together had that tight hold on their emotions, that strain on their faces from being unsure how to behave with one another now that they had a witness.

I wanted to move past this stage quickly so Miss Stackhouse could move forward. Some days I wait for the couple to break the silence, see who goes first, see what's on their mind. But I had an idea where Miss Stackhouse's earlier revelations could lead, and I was excited for her, even if she was looking at me with something akin to dread.

I smiled at her, careful to keep my lips closed, and swiped my pocket square across my damp forehead.

"Well, that was quite an emotional scene we had back there, was it not? How are you healing, Mr. Northman?"

The vampire's growl was all I needed to know he was right as rain.

I turned to the telepath, who was eyeing me suspiciously. I watched her for a second and her gaze seemed to soften somewhat, her shoulders relaxing infinitesimally. She licked her lip and her hand strayed to her vampire's thigh. She leaned toward him and he placed a proprietary hand on her neck. He was glaring at me, but I paid it no mind.

"Now, I believe there may be a miscommunication here: Miss Stackhouse, you said that Mr. Northman attacked me because he saw your tears and didn't think you could care for yourself." I turned to the vampire. "Mr. Northman, please turn to your Bonded and tell her why you acted as you did."

Mr. Northman's fangs were pressing into his lower lip. Vampires are not known for their willingness to explain themselves-ancient and powerful ones even moreso. I watched the vampire for his response. He wiped blood from his mouth and placed the empty bottle of True Blood on the side table. I smiled. This little bit of intimidation was almost quaint it was so predictable. But that didn't mean I took it lightly. I ran my fingers along the filigree of my walking stick and waited.

The vampire stroked his Bonded's neck with sensitivity and deliberation for a moment, his eyelids dropping slightly at the sheer tactile pleasure of it. He allowed himself this, and then turned to her.

"Lover, you are strong-very strong." He ran fingers through her hair, his eyes roaming her face, which was flushed in response to his closeness and his soft tone. "You are my Valkyrie. But I will not allow the demon to inflict pain, no matter how strong you are. You need no more pain right now."

The telepath leaned away from him and rolled her eyes, muttering something like, "Mr. High Handed."

The vampire descended toward her and she jerked back, irritated. Then he whispered to her in a foreign tongue and her muscles relaxed. She allowed herself to be pulled into his embrace. I listened carefully, studying. I could pick out the rhythm of the language, sounding like Old English, but not quite. No, Old Norsk. Yes, that's it. It's been centuries since I've heard it. This one may well be a Viking after all. Very interesting. I believe he was muttering something about ownership and protection.

I watched the telepath's eyes flutter closed and her mouth part as his words and breath drifted over her ear. A slight mottle of blush appeared on her cheeks. So she enjoys the ancient language. But I wonder…

"Miss Stackhouse, do you know what he says?"

The telepath leaned back from him reluctantly and looked at me, eyes glassy. She blinked and then straightened, pushing the vampire away as if she'd been caught. "Ah… No."

I thought back to the last session, when she insisted she would never be turned and crowed proudly about never falling under the vampire's influence. I nodded. Very interesting. Perhaps the vampire slips into his ancient language when he wishes to tell her things he does not believe she will appreciate. "If you would be so kind, Mr. Northman, please translate."

The vampire turned to me and leveled a glacial stare in my direction. I smiled encouragingly and opened my palm toward his beloved. He would have to learn to trust her if they were to last.

"Lover, I said I wished to protect you, regardless of your strength."

"That's not quite right, is it now, Mr. Northman? My Old Norsk is rusty but there was something else in there."

I raised a brow at him and he curled back his lips from his fangs in frustration. I don't believe he's used to being out-maneuvered.

He turned back to his telepath and took her mouth in a long, slow, deliberately arousing kiss. I could smell the effects it had on his Bonded and when he released her, her breath was ragged and she had fisted his shirt in her palms. "You are mine," he whispered between kisses. "And I protect what is mine."

The telepath ran her fingers into his hair and kissed him before the last word was out of the vampire's mouth. Mr. Northman groaned and fell upon her, pressing their dual weights into the mattress. Then the pungent scent of blood was in the air. I watched Miss Stackhouse's smile against his lips and realized she must have just fed him a little of her blood. Interesting. Not at all the response I expected. Perhaps there was a part of this claiming that the telepath enjoyed after all.

But then the mood shifted as suddenly as if a gust of wind passed through the room. She pulled back and looked at him, and her face was immediately set, eyes narrowed, mouth a tight line, jaw flexing. She shoved until he pulled of of her. He smirked. I believe this is a well-worn dynamic between these two.

"I'm… not yours… and you know it," she hissed lowly, and the vampire twitched in a way that led me to believe that she may as well have slapped him. But there was something in her eye. Some small glimmer. She leaned into him ever so slightly and pressed her cheek into his chest. Interesting. I believe the humans would call this a "mixed message." The vampire must be used to this, however, because his arms circle around her and he welcomes her. He buries his face in her hair, as much to protect himself from my gaze as to be close to his woman.

And she is his woman. I watched her press her arm around his ribs and close her eyes. She let out a soft, breathy sigh. Content. Perfectly content. And clinging. Desperate not to lose him. And yet…

"Miss Stackhouse, when your vampire says you are his, what do you hear?"

Without raising her head from the vampires chest, she said, "It means I'm his property." She stroked the vampire's side and then pushed off of him reluctantly. Her eyes were hooded, but a quick few blinks and she was fully alert and the tension had returned to her body.

"It means I can't offer my blood or sex to anyone but him, but that he can pass me around like a party favor if he wants."

Now her arms were crossed over her chest and she was shrugging off the touch of her vampire. Her eyes were steady on the quilt. Mr. Northman growled and leaned in close to his woman, his mouth at her ear.

"Passing around humans is a disgusting practice perpetuated by vicious old vampires," he growled and Miss Stackhouse flinched away. He would not have it, however, and he used his considerable strength to force her close to him. He is very aggressive, controlling with her, but not when she is outright abusive. No. No, only when he believes her to be pulling away emotionally. This is very unusual, especially for a vampire old enough to speak Old Norsk fluently. "Besides, passing you off assumes I would grow bored of you. And you, my lover, are never boring."

The telepath merely hugged her arms around herself tighter and curled her shoulders in. Interesting. She does not trust this to last. Perhaps she can't believe him.

I studied the pair for a moment and thought of Miss Stackhouse's earlier revelations about her parents' deaths. I had a hunch.

"Miss Stackhouse, if I may?" The telepath looked up at me with hard eyes, no emotion betrayed. "Do you believe vampires capable of mating?"

The telepaths laugh was like a firework going off-a crack and then a pop and a tinkling laughter. The question seemed to take even her off guard, as she clamped her hand over her mouth. A sparkle returned to her eyes and she raised a brow at me.

I smiled and waved a hand. She had a point. The vampire had all but mated with her in front of me. "What I mean, my dear, is do you believe vampires capable of long-term relationships—of finding and keeping a mate?"

The mirth left the telepath's lovely blue eyes and her mouth puckered, her shoulders back in defiance. "If they can, I haven't seen it." She cocked her head to the side, leaning away from her vampire.

"This is very important, Miss Stackhouse. You have clearly bonded with your vampire—if not, his inability to rescue you from the fairy assassins would not have the impact on you that it did. It is quite understandable that you might prefer to think vampires incapable of such long-term devotion. After all, you experienced quite a betrayal from the last vampire with whom you were romantically involved. And you were beginning to form a love bond with this vampire a year ago when he lost all memory of your time together and left you. That is quite a lot of betrayal and abandonment."

I looked at the part-fairy and she tensed and looked down for an instant. "Yes," I whispered and nodded. "Quite a lot, indeed."

I gazed on the couple. They were a matched set of tension and defensiveness: Their shoulders both tensed, their jaws set, their eyes level and emotionless. Yes, very well matched indeed.

I slanted my head to the side. "Do you recall what we were discussing earlier, Miss Stackhouse, about your parents?"

The part-fairy's eyes flared with warning and, were it possible, I would believe that her muscles clamped even further down upon her bones. She was a rigid mass almost instantly. She gave no sign she heard me, so I prompted again. She nodded slightly. The vampire's fangs made a reappearance.

"Have I shared with you, Miss Stackhouse, some of the research on early childhood traumas?" The telepath shook her head slightly. "Children who experience major traumas, such as the death of a parent—" The telepath lowered her eyes. "—often experience what is called in clinical circles a 'foreshortened view of the future.' What that means is because important adults in their lives are not there to model long, rich lives, they often cannot think past the immediate moment.

"Which means they cannot plan for a future. They find it difficult to imagine their job prospects long term. They cannot imagine living to retirement age and often have difficulty saving for the future. And," here I paused to watch the telepaths eyes sink toward the quilt, "they often cannot fathom a long-term committed relationship. It's not that they do not wish for these things. Their brains literally cannot imagine them for themselves. They learn not to expect anything. They can't see beyond the moment, beyond survival."

And there it was: The heavy-lidded, slumped shouldered look of recognition. Miss Stackhouse raised her eyes to me and shook her head slightly and pulled her chin back, shocked, confused, suddenly aware.

The vampire, bonded mate that he is, quickly gathered her to him and whispered soft, kind words to her. Very good. Very much in love.

I waited patiently, allowing the fairy's tears to well and fall, observing how the vampire tensed and his eyes tightened. He did not enjoy Miss Stackhouse's tears. He would want to quell them. Let us observe.

The little girl sniffled and opened her mouth a few times, attempting to order her thoughts, I believed. Mr. Northman was becoming more and more agitated. His face remained placid, but his hand twitched in his lap and I was sure he was considering reaching for the sword he brought into the bedroom when he returned, clad in a pair of jeans and kelly green t-shirt. He believed I was causing his beloved pain unnecessarily. We would discuss this.

"You will leave..."

"Thank you, Mr. Northman," I said softly but firmly. I smiled at the vampire and held up a hand to stop him. I could tell this vampire was unused to heeding others' instructions. I palmed my silver-tipped walking stick and waited politely, all the while watching the part-fairy gain strength.

"I understand your desire to make this easier on your Bonded, but it is essential that she be allowed to express her feelings-all her feelings-and be able to put words to them. Will you allow it?"

The vampire set his jaw and twitched once more. But he nodded slightly and turned to his Bonded, stroking her neck carefully, delicately, pulling her into his chest. There was something in the way he tensed that told me he was feeling this, as well, despite the loss of the blood bond.

I smiled kindly at the telepath, as I could see she was shocked by this information. Realization was dawning on her, a slight light in her eye that wasn't there before.

"I thought it was because of my disability…" she whispered. "The reason I never thought of having a relationship, I mean."

I nodded. She was very sharp, very brave, addressing this head-on. I was quite proud, though I knew she did not need it from me.

"Your gift complicates the issue, of course, Miss Stackhouse," I nodded. "But it is almost unheard-of for someone with childhood trauma to piece this together. After all," I said with a flourish of my pen, "most of us merely live our lives. We don't question why we have the goals we have—or rather, why we are easily satisfied or discontented."

The telepath nodded absently, her brows furrowed in concentration as the pieces fell together in her mind. "So that's why I didn't expect much from work?" she asked no one in particular.

I nodded, excited for her. "And it may be why, when your vampire lost his memory of your time together, you did not question it, did not fight it."

Miss Stackhouse's eyes shot to the vampire's in a moment. She watched him and his face softened only slightly-but enough that the telepath could tell he was touched. He pulled her to him more tightly. She did not struggle in his grasp. She put her hand on his forearm, her nails digging into his skin, almost as if she were seeking to hold him there, keep him with her, by her will alone.

"May I ask you something, Miss Stackhouse?"

The telepath looked at me, and I could see she was close to overwhelmed already. Things were about to become much more overwhelming for her, but I believed her ready for it.

"Do you love Mr. Northman?"

Her eyes widened, in a watery, panicked moment. It was a look I'd never seen on her face before. Pleading.

The vampire was still, his face placid, but his eyes tracked his Bonded closely. He moved his hand from her waist and slipped it behind her. Ah. So the vampire fears outright rejection. Interesting.

"I..." She started, blinking furiously to clear the moisture from her eyes. She glanced once, twice at the vampire to her side and tucked her head close to her chest. "I can't say."

I cocked my head and waited.

"May I ask, Miss Stackhouse: Does that mean you don't know how you feel-or that you cannot verbalize it?"

She bit her lip and I watched as she vibrated with shivers. Her hand tightly grasped Mr. Northman's arm and he leaned into her. The other hand wrapped around her stomach protectively.

"The second."

The vampire leaned a millimeter closer to her, his eyes softer, brows wrinkled infinitesimally.

"Why can't you say it?"

She paused for a second, considering, and then huffed out a frustrated breath. Suddenly, she wasn't panic-stricken or frightened. It seemed I had touched her too closely. I waited for the onslaught.

"I just can't say it, alright? You're awful pushy tonight." She ran her fingers through her hair and refused to look at the vampire who was still clutching her. "Can't it all just be too much? For heaven's sake, the scars are still on my thighs and you want me to talk about _this_?" She waved her hand between herself and Mr. Northman, who was watching her cautiously.

When I thought she was done speaking, she whispered, "Maybe I can't do all this all over again."

"What can't you do again?"

"Look, after..." She sighed and slumped her shoulders. "After what the Things did to me, I know too well how much power you all have," she waved her hand between Mr. Northman and myself, indicating, I assumed, the whole supernatural world, "how much stronger you are. I know how you can control my life. And I just... I can't let go of that control. Not now. I feel like I don't have any control right now."

She reached a hand up to her vampire's face, but he intercepted it and held it in his own, away from his body. She looked at her hand and blinked.

"And why do you believe admitting your feelings-whatever they may be-would be tantamount to giving up control? Why can it not embolden you?" I asked. I found myself leaning forward in my seat, I was so excited for the telepath.

She looked up at me, confused, as if the answer were obvious. I thought I knew. I thought we were on the cusp.

She let out a short, humorous laugh. She shook her head.

"You know how vampires are. If I say what I feel-and I'm not saying what that is, you understand—but if I say it, things will change. He'll take over my life. He'll want me to quit my job and move into his house and be his little woman. His trophy... His kept woman. And I want my life. I _need_ to have a say over when I come and go and where I live and work. And I want..."

She stopped, looking down, her face flushed. Her countenance was strong but her eyes seemed hopeless, confused.

"This is quite understandable," I said gently. "After losing control to the fairy assassins, it's quite natural to seek control over your environment."

"Exactly!" she interrupted. "So why are you forcing it? Why would you ask me that, unless you're on his side?"

She cast a look at her vampire that was so sharp that I wondered at his willingness to endure it.

"I assure you, Miss Stackhouse, I wish only for you to heal. And you are doing quite well. Your willingness to step outside today proves that-"

"Lover," purred the vampire, gathering her in his arms, kissing her cheek and neck and muttering in Old Norsk. Something about a Valkyrie and perfection. So in love this vampire-willing to endure her barbs. I raised my brows, surprised.

Finally, I decided to continue, attempting to make my point before time ran out.

"As I was saying, your willingness to step outside today proves that you are willing to experience uncertainty and overcome your body's fear of change to improve. What I am suggesting is that the same may be necessary to heal your abandonment wound and repair the emotional bond between you-the heart bond."

Her look towards me was sharp with doubts. "This aversion of yours to risk is natural, Miss Stackhouse. One could hardly blame you for wishing to avoid pain—any pain. But you have seen how staying where you felt safe-in this house, for instance—has caused your world to shrink and did nothing to address the underlying fear-which is that you cannot protect yourself, that you are unloved."

I raised my brows as she watched me, her face doubtful but curious. She licked her lips and nodded.

"Likewise, with the abandonment wound and with the lingering effects of childhood loss, it feels safer, more sane, to hold paramours at a distance, to give up your bond before it can abandon you." I thought of her description of losing her parents, of her confusion and stubbornness that they would come back, of that doll that she thought, in her child's logic, must have been the cause of her parents' premature deaths, and felt my heart lurch toward the very young telepath. It was quite a lot to be saddled with and, without guidance, she had done an admirable job of adjusting to it. Now was time for her to grow, however. And it might be painful.

"But I assure you that the behavior that you believe is protecting you from feeling abandoned is recreating the abandonment every time you reject your feelings for your Bonded."

Her eyes slid from mine, her brows furrowed in deep thought. Her eyes searched the room frantically and then settled on the watercolor of cotton fields behind me. Then she grew still. Her eyes scanned the painting from top to bottom, seemingly taking in every square inch of it.

"Maybe..." She swallowed, shaking her head when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

"When I was alone after my parents died... Oh, hell. I hate this." She looked up at me, channeling all her self-hatred and shame around her parents' death toward me. I gladly took it in if it would mean her recovery and that the heart bond would be restored.

She struggled out of the vampire's hold, but still held one of his hands on her belly. He continued to kiss her hair. She backhanded him in the chest lightly and he relented.

"So you're saying that the longer I don't say... how I feel... the longer I'll feel... alone?"

I smiled at her, pride welling up in me. I nodded. "And perhaps though your childhood loss would suggest otherwise, a long term bond based on love _is_ possible for you."

I let the words linger in the air, watching as tears pooled in her eyes and she shivered slightly. I could see her turning over the idea in her mind.

"But if I admit my feelings," she said slowly, her fingers at her lips, "he'll have power over me. More than he has now as the Sheriff of Area 5. I won't be able to... I won't be able to control my feelings anymore. I won't be able to stop myself from doing something... Oh Jesus Christ, Shepard of Judea, I just know I won't be able to stop myself from doing something stupid to protect him. And I know..." Her voice broke. "I know that if I say how I feel... and he... doesn't feel the same, or if it doesn't... mean the same thing to him... I... I'm not sure I can take that." She looked up at me with clear, cold eyes. She had made up her mind, then, to hold back. For now. That's fine. She's made more progress than I expected today.

"That is a situation easily remedied," I said with a smile, turning to the vampire who sat scrutinizing his mate with a blank expression. "Mr. Northman, can you tell me how you feel about your Bonded?"

The vampire looked at me with those emotionless blue eyes of his and pulled the part-fairy against him so tightly her face was crushed into his chest. For a moment, she seemed content there.

He opened his mouth to speak and as he did the part-fairy grew more and more tense. Before a syllable could leave his mouth the part-fairy's eyes screwed together tight and she cringed away from him. Such an extreme reaction. And also extremely understandable.

"Certainly," he started, pulling her back to him. "I-"

"Stop!" the part-fairy blurted, clapping her hand over her mouth as quickly as she spoke. "No... just... Don't. I don't expect you to feel the same as me. I don't expect you to stay... I... I can't. Please. Just don't."

And just like that, she crumpled in on herself and the vampire and I may well have ceased to exist in her world. She was desperate, terrified. Lost.

Her breath came out in long ripping sobs. She clutched at the sides of his shirt, burying her face in the vampire's chest, unwilling to meet either of our eyes.

"Please, let's not do this right now," she wheezed when at last she could speak.

"I just can't, not right now-I can't hear it and I can't say it," she said, looking up at him, begging him to understand with her eyes. "It's not that I can't feel it. I just can't... say it."

The vampire pushed her hair out of her face and leaned down, kissing her softly. An acceptance. A slight nod. "You will yield to me yet, Sookie," he said lowly. "But I am a patient vampire. I will outlast your defenses." He kissed her again. "And then you will be mine."

She looked at him and kissed him back. His lips drifted over her eyelids, clearing them of tears and he hugged her to him. She hugged him back. Very interesting. Very good. However oddly, they were coming to an understanding.

I glanced at my watch. "Well, I hate to end it here, but I believe it is time for me to make my departure," I said into the room, well aware that neither the telepath nor the vampire were paying me any mind. The moment was so tender and so intimate, I could not believe that they would be denying their feelings for much longer.

"I have a few assignments for you two, to continue working on the abandonment wound and the heart bond." The pair were looking in each others eyes. I paused until, finally, they glanced at me. "First, I would like for you to work towards discussing your feelings for one another. I believe this will be helpful. Second, courting continues to be important. Mr. Northman, last time you prepared a date for your Bonded, based on things she would enjoy. Now it's time for Miss Stackhouse to learn more about what you enjoy." I ignored his fangy smile. "I would like for you to prepare a date where you share the types of non-sexual activity you enjoy. Share something of yourself with your Bonded, perhaps something she didn't know.

"And continue working on getting outside. I believe there will continue to be great reward in that."

Then I turned to the part-fairy, who was staring at me from the folds of her lover's shirt. "And I have one last question for you Miss Stackhouse." Her body tensed, but I believed she might like this one.

"Do you like dogs?"

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So? What do you think? That Dr. Gumby. He's a smart one. And so fun to write. I hope the delay in posting was made up for by the abundance of Dr. Gumby in this chapter.

Oh, and I've taken the plunge: I'm on Twitter. Same name as my FF name. I'd love to chat with you on there. Those girls are wild. :)


	26. Chapter 26: Understanding

**A/N: **Hi everybody! Well, it's less than two weeks and I'm already updating. Thanks for that goes out to my amazing beta, moxie mo, who read sections of the story as I went along and helped me organize it, and also to the ladies on Twitter, who encouraged me. And here's a secret: If you get on Twitter and follow me (bellawriter7), I've been sharing sneak peaks of the next chapter as I've gone along. *waggles eyebrows enticingly*

It's especially exciting for me to be posting today because it's my honest-to-god birthday. Yay me! And this may be grandiose, but what I really want is to get Healing Blood over the 1,000 reviews benchmark. I know, it might be impossible. But if you usually read and don't review, I'd love it if you'd add your review to this chapter. It always feels so good to read reviews and to hear your take on our Sookie and Eric, and it would be an amazing birthday gift to have even more great reviews. Just putting it out there.

Oh! And I wanted to add, because a few people PMed me about it, that the bit in the last chapter about foreshortened futures and people who experienced childhood traumas is all true. It's even in the DSM, which is the bible of psychiatry. Just Google "foreshortened future, childhood trauma" and you'll get plenty of hits.

Anyway, enough of that. I hope you love this chapter. I think it's my favorite yet.

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Disclaimer:** CH owns these characters. I'm just trying to make them do what I was CH would have them do. Just saying.

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**Chapter 26: Understanding**

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**Eric's POV**

Sookie's face was drained, her eyes bewildered, unfocused. I pulled her to me again and leaned down, brushing my lips over her mouth. She did not resist. She must truly be exhausted if she didn't have the energy to push me away.

Cradling her to me in one arm, I brushed her hair away. I studied her. She was as I'd always known her: Strong, my Valkyrie. But also, at this moment, totally unguarded, revealed in a way I knew she would regret later. She does so enjoy having control. I smiled down at her.

So strange these emotional effects. In my human days, death was as much of a constant, unrelenting force as it has been since I was turned. The bonds of life were formed and broken, mourned and acknowledged, but never worried over. Their long-term effects were not studied. No one wrung their hands about it. Men did what they must for the survival of the group. You married, you bore young. Whether you wanted it was inconsequential. The resulting deaths of infants and mothers in childbirth was equally expected. Matters of antibiotics today were the causes of inevitable and swift mortality. Men were no more safe-we did not expect to live beyond a few decades. And those of us who were warriors lived hard, knowing our futures would come for us with shields and swords. Planning for the future was irrelevant.

My lover closed her eyes and I watched as all the tension drained from her face. She curled her cheek into my chest like an infant. I gave in to the impulse to bury my nose in her delicious hair. How different our lives-human and undead-had been. Human lives in my time were prescribed. Today humans had so many choices, the responsibilities of independence could be overwhelming. My lover knew this intimately. She was a product of her age's expectations of personal accountability. I thought of the demon's explanation that childhood losses make it impossible for humans today to contemplate a future, a mate, a career.

I shook my head. Humans today were so coddled. I looked down at my Sookie and her eyes were on me, clear and hard. But not my Sookie. Not coddled, I thought as I caressed her side. As it should be. I doubt she would hold such allure for me if she were any of the millions of pampered women I came across these days.

I would not coddle her if she allowed it. But I would love her.

"You never cease to surprise me, dear one," I whispered. Predictably, she tensed. I did not release her. Instead I smiled and lowered my face to her ear, inhaling her delicious scent as it mingled with men. "You demand my honesty but couldn't wait to stop me from speaking it tonight. Perhaps I should just tell you, and alleviate the problem."

I pulled back and Sookie struggled out of my arms. Quickly she was completely submerged in sheets and blankets and quilts. She pulled them up tight. I laid myself out beside her, draping my arm over where I knew her stomach would be. She looked away and shrugged.

"You are hiding again, dear one," I crooned at her. "When I was cursed..."

"Eric, don't start with that. Please," she whispered and turned away. I molded myself to her back and did not relent.

"But now I understand, Sookie. When I was cursed and we drove to Pam's house, I offered to leave everything for you. I offered to get a regular job and help you. I offered to love you." I spoke slowly and soothingly, but I was piecing her reluctance together, and found it pleased me to hear it aloud. "I could feel that you wanted to do it, dear one. I felt your resignation and sadness. Such deep loss, dear one." My Sookie trembled under me and I pulled her close. "I could feel you pulling away. You... couldn't tell me you wanted it also, could you?"

It made no sense to me, even now, but her reaction told me everything. She curled her arms in close to her chest and wound herself into a tight ball.

"You didn't know what you were giving up," she said in a broken, thick voice, the result of hours of crying. She shook and I knew it was involuntary. Then she straightened her back, taking her curled-in legs with her. She shrugged and cleared her throat and shrugged in indifference. My bullshit meter was reading off the charts. "I knew... you'd return to your life and that you wouldn't want all that anymore after you saw what you already had... I couldn't ask you to give up your life sight unseen."

I pressed my lips to her ear, licking briefly. I could not, chose not to, resist. "Why not?"

She turned onto her back and stared at me blankly. Her eyes were puffy and greying around the edges from exhaustion.

"Eric." She shivered and I watched as she forced herself to still and meet my eyes. "Baby, you love being a big shot. You _love_ having people worship at your feet. You love fighting. Living in little ole Bon Temps would get boring after about 15 minutes and then you would hate me."

"You think so?" I asked, smiling down at her, the scent of her making my fangs run down. "You could have asked for what you wanted. We would have come to an understanding." I stopped and studied her blank, wide eyes, the slight pucker between them, the liquid beginning to pool in them again, the hard set of her jaw. She didn't want these feelings. I would guess she were overwhelmed if I didn't know how self-possessed she was. Then I kissed her, unhurried and exploring what was mine.

"Ah, but perhaps you could not have asked me, Hmm? Perhaps you could not have even acknowledged to yourself what you wanted? That you wanted a future?" I found myself speaking gently, when it was my wont to be demanding. How this woman was changing me. I smiled. My woman, whether she could say the words or not.

A burning started in my chest. Her words echoed in my head. _No-don't say it._ _I can't take it._ It was always the same with her. Perhaps it always would be. Declarations might never be forthcoming from her. Perhaps we'd always have this tension. Was there no future with my Sookie? Nothing that we could plan?

"You cannot ask for what you want, can you?" I asked again because she looked away. "You could not allow us to work out a solution together, because there was no solution-no future that you could see. This paltry job of yours, this nebulous relationship is all that you can manage, isn't it?" Sookie blinked away her tears and stiffened, crossing her arms in front of herself. It had the wonderful effect of pushing her breasts together and up. I spared a moment to admire her. She turned away from me. But I took her face in my hand and forced her to look at me. I would not be denied. I would bring her to my side.

"You only take what's offered-which isn't much," I said, as gently as I could. But I would not spare her the truth. I knew she wouldn't want that. "So you end up in a dead-end job with friends who sell you out to the Fellowship of the Sun." I shook my head and sucked my teeth in irritation. A small smiled settled on my lips. I felt wicked, enjoying the pique animating her muscles. "You could have had your heart's desire, Sookie. You could have had the entire supernatural world beating a path to your door to pay you handsomely for your gift."

I leaned down and kissed her again. If she was going to grow agitated before me, I would take that energy. I would use it. I would conduct it into the result I wanted-the result I was sure she would want if she could want anything. If she could want me. My heart twisted in a fist. My eyes drifted over her irritated eyes, tears drifting from them, to her cheeks reddened by too much truth, to her trembling open mouth. I kissed it, put it to better purpose.

"You cannot claim me, can you? You never could claim me." My voice grew louder, deeper and I clenched my jaw to hold in the growl building in my chest. This truth was caustic, burning as it came out. I brushed hair out of her face and she flinched. I felt my body tense with rage. Why must she always fear me? I held my voice steady. "I have done nothing, dear one-" I kissed her cheek as she turned her head away. "-nothing but attempt to claim you since we met. And you could have me. You have only to ask. You have only to say the words."

Finally, my telepath pushed me away, placing her hand on my cheek and pressing. It was as close to a slap as I'd ever received from her. I felt the scowl as it settled into lines on my face. The growl sounded lowly, so low that perhaps she could not hear the warning.

She moved away from me on the bed and I felt the absence of her heat.

"And then what, Eric?" she spat quietly, looking away. "And then we-what? We're happy for a few years or a few weeks or a few hours until your job becomes more important, or your big boss orders you to sell me out? Or you remember that your survival is more important than some telepathic barmaid in some tiny town. There's no future here. That's why I don't claim you, Eric."

She looked down, shaking her head, trying to talk herself out of something.

"It's not because I don't want you."

She began tearing and the color drained from her beautiful, obstinate face. "Claiming you will just rip my heart out and I've already been through that. I won't do it again."

As if shoved, I moved back on the bed and placed my feet on the cool floor. I looked at her, small, curled upon herself, rigid with righteousness. "I mean... This is just... a lot for one night. An awful lot... I need to eat. I need some time to think... alone."

I shook my head. I have been running after her like some mongrel. I would not continue to fight with her on this. She is young and immature and perhaps incapable of what I want.

I walked toward the door and turned back when I heard her shift on the bed to watch me. The look on her face was stricken, her brows furrowed. Even from the distance I could see the tremor echo through her.

"You need your rest. I have work to do. We will speak... later."

And with that, I left my Sookie-left her room and left her house, pulling my attache case to the front porch. Despite her seeming progress earlier today, I was confident she would not follow. Good. I needed some time. I needed... away from her.

.

.

**Sookie's POV**

I curled away from the door and put my hand in front of my face. Lord have mercy but I was wrung out like an old dishtowel. Too much to deal with all at once. Couldn't he understand that? I was already raw from the Things and then Dr. Gumby has to go and hit me with the one-two punch of my parents and this supposed invisible future thing. And then Eric has to go and tell me I could have him-really have him-if I'd just say those words.

Damn him. I flipped the covers off of me and felt the cold hit me all over. That must have been why I was shivering. I was sure of it. Maybe.

The most recent wave of nauseating tremors passed through me and I wrapped my arms around myself. Dammit. I don't want to feel all this. And where does Dr. Gumby get off telling me I'm trying to protect everyone else by keeping information from them? Right. Because the world needs more chaos. Because the world needs me letting lose everything I hear.

As if... I swallowed. As if being totally honest is ever really an option.

I opened my eyes and there was Eric times five. My eyes zeroed in on the photo from last year's calendar, the outtake where he's holding his hand out to me. The picture went blurry, then came clear again. _I have done nothing, dear one-nothing but attempt to claim you since we met. And you could have me. You have only to ask. You have only to say the words._

I shook my head and buried it in the pillow. He's so full of crap. All that "claiming" he tried to do of me early on wasn't because he lo... wanted me for me. It was a big jumble of horniness and jealousy and control. For a long time, I don't even think he liked me. He can't just... say things like that as if he's a regular guy and I'm just a girl. He can't say that as if there's not a boatload of vampire crap between us.

But what was it Dr. Gumby said? In my exhausted, groggy state, I reached back in my mind. Geez, he'd just left and I already was losing what he said. Losing it. I don't know why I was surprised. I'd been losing it for a while now.

And then it came to me. _The behavior that you believe is protecting you from feeling abandoned is reopening the abandonment wound every time you reject your feelings for your Bonded._

The words were like a punch in my gut. I blinked. And what was it he said about me not being able to imagine a future because my parents died? That seemed too easy. I hated it when people blamed their problems on their childhoods. Like we don't all have crosses to bear. Seems to me it's mostly an excuse to avoid taking responsibility for their decisions today. I get to choose and I _was_ choosing. I was choosing...

I stopped myself and sat up, looking intently at the pictures of Eric. I don't know why. They couldn't tell me what I needed to know.

... Was I choosing to be alone? I shook myself. No. I was just choosing me-my life, my independence... Wasn't I?

I thought of how lost I felt when Eric went to work the other night, how convinced I'd been that he wouldn't come back. How empty I'd felt, as if he'd reached into me and scooped out my insides and took them with him. And then when he'd come back, I'd been so happy to see him. Well, more than happy to see him. My body flushed with the memory and my muscles twitched, wanting to tear his clothes off him. Lordy I was in so deep now.

I mean, sure, I wasn't about to let him say it-if his _it_ and my _it_ were even the same thing-but I'd been doing that since the beginning and he always kept coming at me like a Mack truck. Nothing fazed him. In fact, I got the sense that he kinda liked the hunt. I found myself laughing, remembering when he drove me back from Jackson. _That's my future lover you're talking to._ Lord. He was so arrogant. Big vamp on campus, that was him. I got the feeling no one ever turned him down. For a second I felt like a mouse he was toying with. If I stopped fighting... would he leave? Would he go in for the kill?

... And if no one ever turned him down, then what was I to him?

Did I want to know?

Dammit. It was like my mind ran into a brick wall again. I felt like a rat in a maze-and not a very smart one, either. One that kept getting turned around and running into the same barriers over and over and over again. I'd never get free at this rate.

I swung my legs over the side of the bed and stood, testing my strength. Well, I didn't know the answer to that question, but I sure knew the answer to another question: Leftover chicken and dumplings. That's what I'd have for dinner. Man. Having your body turned inside out on you sure did work up an appetite.

I headed to the kitchen and started rooting around the fridge. Despite my rattled state, I still felt a wave of warmth and gratitude for Bonnie. My kitchen was stocked full of my favorite things and were prepared with love.

I got out the container, popped the lid so it wouldn't get warped in the microwave and set the timer. As it whirred, I gathered a spoon and paper towel and poured myself a glass of iced tea. I took a deep breath. I was so relieved I could do this again-walk around my kitchen without pain, eat a full meal. Hell, the fact that I was hungry at all was a good sign. I chuckled to myself. In no time I'd be back to my usual size. Maybe if I was lucky, I'd stop at a size 8. A girl can hope.

The microwave beeped and I took the Tupperware bowl carefully to the table. I removed the lid and watched the steam rise. My stomach dropped. Well, here's some truth for me: I wouldn't have this soup or all this food or even be able to walk upright now if it weren't for Eric. I owed him. My heart burned like it had been dipped in acid and rolled out like a pie crust. I gripped my spoon so tight my knuckles turned white and the metal bit into my palm. Dammit. Why couldn't I be grateful to him? Why did his kindnesses always fill me with dread? When would I ever feel he didn't have power over me? Could I ever really let go with him? Why did this have to be so painful?

I let out a low growl. Dammit. _I'm a mess. I'm such a mess._

Or maybe I'm right. I don't know.

I could make a list of all the things that were great about Eric: He's gorgeous. He has the best butt in all of the South-maybe all of America. He was an amazing lover. He was playful and energetic. He got little crinkles on the sides of his eyes when he smiled. He listens to me when I talk. He thinks I'm smart. And not for nothing, I can't hear him.

And sometimes he looks at me like I hung the moon.

I blinked and felt a tickly tear fall down my cheek. I sniffled, thinking of the other night when he told me about the monk. He touched me like I was precious. My skin suddenly felt like it was too sensitive. And it wasn't just the sex. There was something in his eyes. So sad. Maybe even... adoring? I almost couldn't let myself think it.

God but he's amazing. So what's he doing with me?

I looked down at my soup and decided it'd cooled long enough. I ladled a little to my mouth and sighed in joy as I ate. How I could keep crying while I was happy I didn't know.

But then there were the things I couldn't stand about him: His job, his habit of disappearing for weeks at a time, his high-handedness. Hell, he caused me no end of pain by sending those construction people in without even asking me. Lord knows what he's done to Bill for scaring me the other night. He threatened to kill my therapist in front of me. He could kill me. He probably wants to so he can make me a vampire. He's threatened me before.

How could I tell someone like that I love him? How could I trust him not to kill me or people I love? How could I...

Let me tell you, it's hard to swallow when you're sobbing. But I managed it.

As I scraped the bottom of the bowl and tipped it up to suck down the last little drops of broth, I looked at the bowl and blushed a little. There must have been enough in there for a few meals. Oh well. I'd eaten. Bonnie should be glad. For good measure, I grabbed a banana and started peeling it.

I walked down the hall, heading back toward my room. That's when I noticed how quiet the house was... and fear shot through me, tingling in my fingertips.

"Oh!"

I found myself suddenly in the living room and closed my eyes. I reached out with my mind and exhaled loudly. Oh praise the Lord. There was a void on my porch. I stepped forward carefully, out of habit trying to avoid the loose boards that, I realized all of a sudden, weren't there any more. I stepped more surely and peered out the window. I could just see Eric's bare feet and his jeans-clad calves. I put my hand on the window. Such nice calves.

I breathed as quietly as possible. I didn't want to draw attention. But he's a vampire. I'm sure he could hear me on this side of the wall.

And just like that, an unwanted thought came to me: What if Dr. Gumby's right? What if I'm in pain not because Eric's going to leave, but because I can't admit my feelings? What if what I thought was helping me was actually making me miserable?

I placed my hand on the door. Did I dare? Could my heart take another shock. I turned the nob.

.

.

**Eric's POV**

I don't know how long I'd been sitting there when a cool breeze slapped my face and brought be back to reality. I'd been staring at Sookie's moonlit yard, thinking. Remembering.

I eyed the gravel and felt my lip curl in distaste. The gravel I'd given her. This gravel I stepped over when she brought me into her house, a brain-damaged and dangerous vampire. I shook my head.

I turned my head slightly to the side. The door I'd replaced. The danger I'd put her in. The shower, the living room floor. The... I closed my eyes and refocused again on the laptop in front of me and flexed and released my fingers. My hands were pressed so hard into the plastic of the computer case that I could see where it bent on impact. I felt myself growl as I listened to her move about the house.

This porch. This is where Sookie traipsed past me and put her hand on the tiger's arm. She allowed him to call her babe.

I remembered with perfect clarity how the tiger's smirk matched Sookie's. _What about it, babe? Are you or are you not his?_ And her response, triumphant, cold and difinitive. _Not._

She'd said, _Not_. She was not mine.

I listened. Tightness pooled between my shoulder blades and my muscles twitched. I wanted to fly from here. I could see it. It would be so easy to launch myself from the porch and cut silently through the trees, no light to betray me. I could feel the wind even now, smell the rot of leaves and the stink of animals rutting. Like I would be doing very soon. I would come to the old country road around Sookie's house. There, I'd find a stranded motorist with car trouble, the hood up, her leaning inside pretending she knew what she was looking at. I would land a distance from her, will my fangs up and present myself as nonthreatening, human. I would speak softly to lure her in and the moment she turned to look at me, her mind would be mine. She would be soft, like Sookie, but perhaps not blond. Perhaps brunette, with long, thick hair and glasses. So many humans seemed to wear those these days.

I would pull her behind the vehicle, away from passing cars. I would have her turn off her hazard lights and her headlights. She would not object. She would not fight. Hell, I might not even have to glamour her. I could imagine the smell of wet asphalt and grass as I laid her down. Without mercy, I would yank up her skirt, tear off her underwear and pull her head back and to the side. I would slide into her without preamble and she would be wet. They always were. I would not be gentle. She would not want me to be. She would be whimpering, begging me to let her cum.

I closed my eyes and swallowed the saliva pooling there. I was uncomfortably hard and shifted in my seat, attempting to ease the tightness in my jeans. My fangs nipped my bottom lip as they descended.

When I was done with her, she would be kissing me and asking me to take her with me, take her away from this disgusting little town and its small-minded people. I could have her easily. I could have almost anyone easily. I thought of the women in tight, short dresses, writhing for me on the dance floor, submitting to me willingly.

I could have any of them. I could...

... But I wanted... I closed my eyes. Dammit, I wanted my Sookie. I wanted her for _mine_-in every sense of the word. She _was_ mine. But she was... injured in some way I did not understand. My Sookie was a sphinx.

And yet when _I_ was in her, there was no lying. I saw her as she was last night, flushed with life and reaching up to meet me, dragging me down onto her, demanded me, tugging off my clothes. If she were stronger, she would have torn them. She may well have thrown me over her own shoulder. I laughed at the image but did not doubt her will to do it, if not her ability.

I pictured her delectable, long column of a neck, throbbing with blood-pulsing for me, calling out to me. I thought of all the times she'd tilted her head away from me, offering her neck. It was a reflex, a subconscious act of acknowledgment-that she wanted me, that she wished to be claimed.

I chuckled under my breath. Yes, she was mine. She had claimed me so many times. She just couldn't say the word. I'd claimed her repeatedly and I would do so again. But when I tried to say it, she recoiled. Every time I have tried: Alone together, even in the presence of the damn demon. And she calls me high-handed.

I do believe my Sookie's body is more advanced than her mind. I smiled to myself. It was her body that would eventually teach her mind the truth. I would not need to force her to yield to me. Her body would do it for me.

As pleased as I was by the though, something else-some other stinging displeasure-snaked through me, turning my unused internal organs to ice. Mine. _It means I'm his property. It means I can't offer my blood or sex to anyone but him, but that he can pass me around like a party favor if he wants._ I gritted my teeth. _If I want. _I sucked my teeth in disgust. She must know that I do not want that. I would keep any other male from touching her again if I didn't think she would leave me for it.

She _is_ a damn sphinx-a riddle that has sent men to their deaths. That she would believe that I would pass her around when I have done nothing but keep her for mine-kept her away from the queen before her final death and from Victor and de Castro after it-baffles me. And after my long life, very little baffles me anymore.

Enough. It is bad enough to suffer indignity at Sookie's hand. I will not do it to myself.

I returned to my computer and found I'd opened a new window in front of the spreadsheets and the email. Despite myself, I could not resist perusing it.

_Dear Abby,_

_My vampire and I have been together for three years and for the most part we're very happy. It was a rocky road at first. He's had to learn a lot about being with human women since the Great Revelation. He wanted to just bite me and move me in with him when we first met! Geez, ever hear of feminism? _

_It took a little doing, but my vampire is now totally the man of my dreams-with one exception: He still won't tell me he loves me. He's marked me as his, and I don't mind telling you I love it-both how he marks me and that he's chosen me, out of all the women out there, as his lady. And he does treat me like one. For an old guy (we're talking 625 years here!) he's up for learning new things. He knows what soap I like and even though he doesn't eat, he calls to ask if there's anything I need from the market before coming home. And I'm so lucky that he looks at me like the moon rises and sets around me. I couldn't be more in love. _

_And I think he is, too. He's even asked me to be his wife, and asked if I would consider being turned by him. But I just can't do it-not before he tells me he loves me. _

_I've asked my friends, and they all say it's just that he's old. My more sympathetic friends say it's because when he was turned romantic love didn't account for much. My less vamp-friendly friends say it's because vampires aren't really capable of love. But I look in his eyes, and I know that's not true. _

_He loves telling me I'm his, and the way he says it almost makes it enough. But sue me-I'm a human girl who needs to hear from her beau that she's more than just property-that I'm his and he's mine and he expects he'll feel warm and passionate toward me for a long time. Honestly, I'm about at the end of my rope. _

_Is there something I can say to convince him to say it? Should I even bother?_

_Sincerely,_

_His and hearttorn_

_Dear His,_

_Ah, love in the vampire age. As if human men and women don't have a hard enough time seeing eye to eye, now we've got different species, different centuries and different cultures to wade through. And don't kid yourself-he _is_ a different species. _

_As a rule, you should never try to convince someone to love you. If they need convincing, you've already lost the game. But for you I'll make an exception. Your vampire sure does sound like he's head over fangs for you, and you sound smitten too. _

_But I'm going to turn the tables on you: Have you told him you love him? If you haven't, I don't want to hear any complaining until you do._

_If you've already tried the direct route, he may need more coaching in how to woo a human. Tell him that the three little words every little girl dreams of hearing are not, "You are mine." They are "I love you." Tell him to say it often since he didn't say it early enough._

_And if after that he still doesn't say it, you've got your answer. Maybe despite all his attentions, you are just a piece of property to him. Better to know now before you're bonded to him by law-or blood._

_Abby_

I turned my head to the side and listened to my Bonded. She was near. My stubborn, injured Valkyrie was breathing shallowly against the window next to the door. She was mine. She would not hide from it any longer. And she would hear it from me.

Now.

.

.

**Sookie's POV**

Turned out I didn't have to open the door. The next second, it was flung wide and a big, intense-looking vampire was looking me over hungrily. I almost wanted to cover myself with my hands on reflex, but I stood my ground and looked up at him. I was trying real hard not to pay attention to the flight instinct that was telling me to get away from the open door and from the man filling it.

And when he took a step toward me, I did just that. I turned heel and ran at a full sprint, sweat breaking out over my neck and back and stomach.

"Ah, a chase," I vaguely heard Eric chuckle over his shoulder and the panic in me grew. Oh, now I'd done it. I was done for. I looked back and he was stalking after me with a wild grin plastered across his face.

"You won't get far, dear one."

I felt myself flush even as I found the stairs and bounded up them. At the top I turned and looked at him. He was quickly three stairs down from me.

"Come out, come out, wherever you are," he sang lowly, his smile sinister and sexy. I stopped short for a second, wondering where in the heck Eric learned that song. I didn't want to know what other games he had played or who he played them with. My heart caught in my throat and my stomach was a jumble of emotions. How could a body want to get away from someone and leap into their arms at the same moment?

"D-Don't come any closer," I whispered, and cringed when my voice broke.

He stepped up a stair and leaned over until his mouth was just next to mine. Then he laughed in my face.

"Oh dear one," he breathed and I leaned back. "You want me closer. Isn't that right? Stop thinking. Pay attention to your body. What do you want, Sookie?"

He leaned a little closer and brushed his lips lightly over my cheek. I may have wobbled a little.

"Tell me what you want."

My breath was coming in little pants and I'd be damned if I would throw myself at him. But his words lingered and I heard Dr. Gumby telling me that the longer I denied it, the worse I'd feel. I was... confused. How could I admit this?

I looked into his eyes and wanted to ask him a question, but I didn't know what to say. If I leaned into him and put my hands on his thick shoulders, it was just to keep myself from falling.

He took another step up and then he was flush with me and I'd never been happier to be pulled against somebody. I buried my cheek in his pecs and exhaled a little louder than I'd intended. I could just stay here. I could just...

A funny feeling landed in my stomach. I almost didn't want to think about it. Maybe I _could_ stay here. With him. Maybe... I started to tear up but held it back by sheer force of will.

"Say it." Mr. High-Handed, as usual, but his tone was soft and so sweet I squeezed my eyes shut even tighter. Hmmm... Mine?

I shook my head slightly into his chest and just kissed him a little. I wished he could understand and give me a little more time. And for a second he seemed to. He pulled me tight against him and kissed my head. But then he let go and pressed himself against the wall, leaving room for me to pass.

I lurched after him and leaned into him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He felt so good. So perfect for me. Acid flooded my stomach.

"Do you remember what I told you after Madden came to this house and took over the Louisiana territories for de Castro?" Eric started, and I stiffened. He ran his fingers up my spine and that familiar shiver followed in his wake. Oh God. He just wasn't going to let this go, was he? I wanted to shut him up so I squeezed tighter and rubbed my hips into his. He growled and laughed.

"I told you you would be hurt if I died-and not because of the bond. I felt the same way when I thought I was going to lose you... a month ago." His voice rumbled through me, touching every part of me. I couldn't believe he was saying this. "It wasn't the bond that made me feel that way. It was these... feelings... I have for you. Just because I'm not cursed anymore doesn't mean those feelings I had when you... saved me... disappeared. In a strange way... I think they became stronger." His arms were like a vice around me now, not letting me up. I had a moment of panic. And when he spoke I had another one. I tried to get myself to pull away from him but my muscles stubbornly clung to him. "I suddenly knew why I felt compelled to be near you. I suddenly knew why I'd run to you that night. I suddenly knew why I'd tried so hard to create a bond with you. It wasn't because I was trying to control you, Sookie... It was because I needed you."

He paused and looked down at his hands, studying them in an oddly human moment. It scared me. I didn't know if I was up for this, as much as I craved it. I needed him to be strong right now. I was such a mess. Something was splitting open in me, something wild I wouldn't be able to control, something that scared me. I'd spent so long pinning it down it seemed insane to let it loose. I thought it might swallow me whole.

Then my brain and muscles got in sync. I lost my footing and stumbled down the stairs. I... I had to go somewhere. The panic was threading my back. It needed to be up against something. It was like I was on autopilot. I couldn't hear him. Somehow I got away from him. I could tell I was moving, but I couldn't feel my feet. Somehow I ended up in my bedroom, looking around desperately. I needed someplace to hide.

But there was no place. I looked up and Eric was right behind me. His eyes were wide, his brow furrowed. Oh Jesus Christ, Shepherd of Judea. This was it.

He took a step forward and I almost flinched, but I held it together for a reason I couldn't fathom. He placed his hands on my shoulders and lowered his mouth to my ear.

"I love you, Sookie."

I collapsed on the floor, feeling my bedside table at my back. It jabbed into me, but I didn't have the concentration to care. I was sobbing, a high cry coming from my throat. That thing I'd been fearing, that wildness was on me and with frightening clarity I knew what it was: It wasn't just craving for his body. It wasn't just my need to feel safe in his arms. It was that, despite my best efforts, despite my attempts to keep my heart safe and locked down again, he'd slithered in there and consumed it. I needed him, too. I needed him in my fingernails and my pores and my armpits. I needed him in every part of me. I loved him. I loved him so much that I couldn't contain it and it was convulsing to get out.

Then the terror struck. If he ever left me. If he hurt me. If he betrayed me... My body remembered suddenly and all consumingly how it felt to be walking down the streets of New Orleans, a vicious bite on my arm, a killing emptiness inside me, as I tried to get away from my life, from the truth that Bill had never loved me, that he'd only used me, that I'd been stupid and naive and an easy mark, so filled with romance-novel fantasies. I'd hated myself so much. I'd felt mugged, throttled, destroyed. The feeling seeped into my bones and I didn't have any will left. If.. If... If Eric ever did that to me, I wouldn't live through it. If he hurt me a fraction of how bad Bill had hurt me, if I... lost him... I would die. I would _die_. Not figuratively. It would literally kill me. I could feel it to my center. I saw the floor approaching my face and realized I was falling. I couldn't control it anymore. I didn't know why that meant I couldn't control my body but it did.

I suddenly felt every inch the weak, fragile human I was. Just as I'd feared, he... he had more power over me now than any being ever had. He had more power over me than if he'd glamoured me a million times. He had more power over me than Dracula had over Renfeld. With a sickening realization, I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that I would do anything for him. I'd stake a thousand vampires. I'd accept that his love had the power to kill me if he took it away again. I loved him and I was terrified of the ferocity of it. Maybe I'd never loved Bill if this was what real love felt like. Maybe that was puppy love, and this was the big love, the real love, the kind of love ballads and songs are written about. The kind of love that comes along once in a lifetime, or a century.

"H... Hold me," I sobbed, reaching a hand out helplessly to him. I was shivering. "Please. Baby, please."

The next instant, I was in his arms and he pulled me close to his still chest. I closed my eyes and felt unaccountably safe and loved. _That_ was the feeling. That was what I'd felt when I was close with him. Not just safe, but _loved_. I breathed deep, seeking to suck the feeling into me and hold it, in case I lost it again. I wrapped my arms around him and held him as close as I could, until my joints ached and my neck hurt.

He was stroking my back in long, soothing waves, but I could feel his body was tense. I realized with a start I hadn't said it out loud yet. I pulled back and he had me in such a tight embrace that I couldn't see him.

"Eric," I finally rasped. "Look at me, baby." I pressed my palms into his chest-this would be mine if I could just say the words, I realized in terror and delight.

He relented and allowed me to pull back so I could see his face. I stroked his cheeks with my fingertips, running my hands soothingly over his hair. I never thought I'd need to soothe Eric, he was always so in control. But just now, in the low light of my bedside lamp, he looked lost and scared, so much like the cursed Eric I'd brought into my home that night a year ago. I had to kiss his lips, stroke his face, his hair, his eyelids. He leaned his face into my hand and I almost pulled back. I couldn't believe this thousand-year-old vampire was cuddling up to me so openly. He was offering himself to me, I realized, looking at him, his eye closed and turned toward my palm, his lips kissing me there. My breath caught.

This could hurt him, too. _I_ could hurt him. I looked at him in wonder. He was crying, I realized with a start. I craned my neck up and took one of his bloody tears in my mouth. Suddenly, he kissed the tears on my cheek. We went on like this for a minute-me kissing away his tears, him lapping up mine-until I forced myself back, forced myself to look at him and say the words. I was hurdling into the dark on an out-of-control train. I looked into his eyes and stroked his cheek one last time. He was on that train with me.

"Eric," I whispered, looking intently into his worried sea-blue eyes. My voice was softer than I can remember it ever sounding. I stroked his face over and over again. Mine, I realized shakily, and it took my breath away. Really and truly mine. "I ... I love you. I love you, too." As soon as I'd said it, it was like I couldn't stop saying it. I was compelled. "Oh God. I love you. Love you."

And then I pressed myself against him and he let himself fall back on the floor of my bedroom and I was suddenly on top of him, kissing him deeply, pressing my lips into him with such force I thought they might be bruised tomorrow.

I sobbed into his mouth, overcome. I wanted to crawl inside him and stay there forever, and pressed myself hard against him, trying to make that happen. I felt myself shiver against him.

"Sookie," he breathed, and it sounded so sweet I about puddled around him. My breath caught and I couldn't care. Oh God. I need him-ferociously, viciously and with such intensity my head hurt.

I shook. "Please don't hurt me," I said simply, and it came out small and high and pleading.

"Never," he said, his voice louder, surer.

"I've lost everyone I've ever loved," I said, kissing him all over his face, and pulling back to look in his eyes. The emptiness inside me wailed. "I've been betrayed and abandoned and hurt real bad. You can't leave me. You can't ever betray me. I won't survive it. Please. You have to promise me. Promise."

He was kissing my eyes, wicking away my tears as quickly as I could make them, sucking a little bit on my eyelids, which was a little gross. His hands were lightly tracing spirals on my butt. _His_. I swallowed hard.

"I swear it, my beloved."

My breath caught in my throat and my whole body throbbed, hearing that word from his mouth for the first time. He held me close again and I buried my face into his delicious chest.

"Say it again," I sobbed. "Tell me."

"I promise, dearest one," he said, stroking my back harder, pulling me up to look me in the eye, his eyes blazing with such love and tenderness that I wanted to look away. He wouldn't let me. He held my eyes with his and I suddenly understood why he always wanted me to look at him during lovemaking. Since I couldn't run away, I started crying all over again. No one, not a single being, had ever looked at me that way before. I must look a fright. "I'm yours. Always."

"Always? Swear it."

"Forever, Sookie, if you'll have me."

I nodded into his neck and shivered. I didn't know what was happening to my body, what my feelings were doing to me. I concentrated on what I knew. I kissed his cool, sweet neck, for the pleasure of it. He was mine. Forever, if I wanted him. I marveled. I didn't quite believe it, but for the moment, I beat back rationality and just kissed him.

I kissed again, up his neck to his ear, which I took into my mouth, sucking and then biting a little.

"You're mine," I whispered, trying it on for size. I felt him honest-to-God shiver. He growled.

"Oh, yes," he rasped. He thrust his hips up into me, and his gracious plenty was pressing hard against me. I wanted all of him, and I wanted it right now.

And then he flipped me over and my back was on the cool wood floor. He rested half his body on mine, one long, strong leg between mine pressing rhythmically. I parted myself to him. He stroked me from my jaw to my hip, over and over, looking at my body like it was the most important thing in the whole world, looking at me so hard, like he was trying to memorize me, trying to take me with his eyes. My body responded like he was. My back bowed all on its own. He leaned down and kissed my neck, and I sobbed in pleasure. Everything in me was turning to jelly, it was so sweet.

He looked up at me, unsure, needing.

"Now you," he said, kissing me again and looking into my eyes. "Tell me."

"I love you, Eric," I said softly, tentatively, getting used to how it sounded. It sounded... true. And right. How could I have doubted it? How had I lied to myself for so long? "I love you, baby."

He closed his eyes in something close to rapture and a small, satisfied smile spread across his face. When he opened his eyes, they were more focused, and I suddenly felt like a field mouse again.

"Say it, Sookie," he whispered, looking in my eyes. "I need to hear you. Please."

He shifted his weight and he was pressing into me more insistently now, making me gasp. I moaned and moved with him. I closed my eyes.

"Sookie," he pleaded.

I regained myself and looked at him again. I felt shy suddenly, barely able to hold his gaze. I blinked a bunch of times. "I'm... I'm yours, Eric."

I heard him growl, and suddenly his big hands were stroking my sides, pressing up on my arms until they were over my head. I laid helpless, trusting him, loving him, wanting him. He kissed my mouth long and slowly, sweetly and then deeply and more harshly.

"Again," he said thickly.

I was sobbing again, but this time, not in doubt. His hands had found my breasts, and his big thumbs were playing over my nipples. My chest heaved in pleasure and abandon. I made some kind of a sound, and it came out as, "Guh."

"I'm yours, Eric. I love you. Oh God, I'm yours."

I turned my head from his view and cried. I was in so deep now, I couldn't get out if I wanted to. He could kill me. I knew it, and I didn't care and that scared me even more.

"You have to keep me now, Eric," I said quietly, hating and loving and confused by how deeply I felt this. "I ... I don't think I have a choice now."

Suddenly he stopped moving on me and I looked at him in surprise. What I saw there shocked me even more. He looked grim. My chest, which had felt so gooey and soft a second ago, went all clammy and cold. Oh God, I thought. I've done it already. I've run him off.

"No," he growled.

I shook my head in confusion and the water works started again. Desperation flooded me and I hated it. Hated him.

"No, Sookie," he said, his voice hard, angry. "You have a choice. _This is your choice. _You choose."

My brain was moving slowly but eventually what he was saying clicked into place. I blinked a few times and nodded. I felt myself grow hot with embarrassment. Oh God. I couldn't hide at all anymore. He wouldn't let me hide behind not having a choice.

I felt myself tense and drew myself up. I used all my energy to look him straight in the eye and said, "No, you're right. I'm just... Dammit, Eric, I'm scared. I'm scared I won't be enough for you. That you'll get bored of me. That you'll find someone prettier. That this is all a crazy phase brought on by how intense everything has been. But.. But you're right. It's my choice and I choose you."

Then I blew out a heavy breath. Right there on his face was that look of fierce love and of triumph again-and I realized that I'd been seeing it every day for more than a week. I ran my fingers over his cheek. He kissed me. And then kissed me again, and then ran his tongue up my cheek to my eyes, capturing my tears as he went. I felt him shiver, and I looked up and could see he was crying again. I moved to lean up and kiss his tears, but he held my arms over my head so I couldn't. I could see that he enjoyed holding me in place, but for the first time, I wasn't going anywhere.

"Finally," he sighed and closed his eyes, letting the tears flow more freely now. I could feel all the fight go out of him-and that's saying a lot for... my Viking. He shuddered. "Finally."

I shivered helplessly under him and nodded.

When he finally opened his eyes, he smiled down at me and kissed me, slowly and patiently and unrelentingly, doing things to me that he'd never done before. "You're mine," he whispered against my mouth, almost like he couldn't believe he could finally say it. I couldn't believe I was letting him get away with it, either. But that look in his eyes, that tone. I just couldn't deny it anymore, not right now anyway.

I nodded against him, my lips brushing his in the process. I reached up with my mouth and took his lips in mine, leading this time, showing him how much I loved him. "Yes," I sighed. "I'm yours. And... and you're mine."

He nodded back, kissing as he did it. "Oh yes. Oh yes."

I spread my legs and wrapped one around his waist, pulling his hips to me further. "Eric," I groaned. "Please. I don't want to wait anymore. I'm tired of waiting. Please. Now."

He threw his head back and laughed, loud and long, and it sounded so good, so right in him. "_You_ can't wait! Dear heart, _you have no idea_."

But he couldn't wait either, apparently, because he let go of my arms long enough to rip the shirt off my body and tear away my jeans and panties together. I wasn't as fast or as strong as him, but I was doing my level best to rid him of his clothes, too. I was tearing at his shirt, tugging it over his head and working the fly of his jeans as earnestly as I'd ever done anything. It wasn't easy. His lips and his teeth and his fangs had found my neck and he was teasing me with them to the point of distraction. He chuckled against me, his cool breath making me shiver. His shoulders were bunched together and he seemed relaxed for the first time since... maybe since I'd known him. I'd never seen him more relaxed. All the tight control in his eyes was gone. He was mine. Oh, gracious, _he was mine._

He raised his hips so I could pull his jeans off his spectacular butt, and the loss of contact made me growl. He laughed again.

"Yes, dear one, show me I'm yours," he laughed against my neck.

My hands landed proprietarily on his butt, and he raised himself so I could get a good grip. Mr. Happy pressed between us. I sighed when I felt him, running my fingers over his cheeks in ecstasy. Forever, he'd said. I could have this butt forever. I laughed giddily at the thought and threw my head back. I rolled my eyes and looked at my vampire. Mine! He was laughing with me, at me, I couldn't tell. It didn't matter anymore. Who cared? He was mine and his luscious butt was mine and I could touch it however much I wanted whenever I wanted. A girl couldn't be so lucky. He grinned down at me joyously and nipped at my sensitive skin. I explored him more vigorously and heard him murmur above me. I scraped my nails up his cheeks and he lunged forward.

"I thought you said you couldn't wait, lover," he teased as he pressed his gracious plenty against my stomach. His smile was wild now. I reached up and kissed him hard, still laughing.

"I know," I said. "But I just love your butt! And it's mine!"

He laughed and grunted as my fingers slipped between his cheeks. "Mine, mine, mine," I teased, biting at his neck as I did.

He groaned even while he was laughing.

We were both so giddy with the realization that I didn't think we'd ever stop laughing. I was shivering with laughter.

"There's something else that's yours, dear one, and would like your attention," he said, his eyes sparkling at me deviously. He took one hand and guided it around his hips, until it landed on his very stiff cock. I groaned. Forever, I reminded myself. Lord, thank you for whatever I did right to deserve this man. Thank you. Praise be. Hallelujah. I was half out of my head. I wrapped my fingers around it appreciatively and stroked, looking in his eyes as I did it.

"Look at me," I said, smiling wickedly. He had closed his eyes but they were on me now, enjoying the challenge. I stroked a few more times, enjoying the load of precum that was dripping from him. I smeared it around with my thumb, coating him with it, sliding it around him, watching as his eyes went in and out of focus with the pleasure of it. He thrust his hips against my palm and I loved it.

"Oh god," I said a little breathless. "No one else gets this. I'm a lucky, lucky girl. Thank you for loving me. Thank you for fighting for me. Thank you, Eric. I love you. Oh. Oh god."

I must have changed my expression just then because he wasn't smiling anymore. He was so focused and his fangs were fully down. He was more sexy than any one being had a right to be, and I told him so.

He grinned triumphantly at me, and I still wanted to slap his face but instead I kissed him and bit his lip, hard.

He growled, and a sound never thrilled me so much.

"You, Sookie," he breathed. "You... You... are driving me crazy. Enough. I want inside you. I want... you. _Claim... you_."

Oh. Oh gracious. Yes. Please. Thank you. Now.

I guided him down until he was just touching my entrance. And then he reached down and brushed my hand away.

"Give me your hand," he rasped, and I reached up to place it with my other arm over my head. He clasped both in his hand. I squeezed my hand around his and he squeezed back. I looked in his eyes and out of nowhere felt shy. And loved. It felt wonderful to finally stop fighting. I raised my knees and spread myself to him, holding his gaze the whole time.

He groaned and rubbed himself around me a little, smearing my juices all over, tickling my nub and making me wiggle. I kept looking in his eyes. I craned to kiss him and he allowed it and then he pulled back. He smiled wickedly, and his fangs made me... oh... What was I saying?

He pressed and then just the tip of him was inside me and I gasped at his size. If I lived to be a thousand, I would never stop being surprised and delighted with his size and how he filled me. He just stayed there for a moment, watching me. I could tell this was an effort for him, but he watched as my breath caught. I felt myself turn bright red. He stayed still the way only a vampire can until I gasped and started moving against him. His hips twitched just a half inch and he buried himself in me just a little deeper, still holding my gaze, and I felt myself flush deeper, all over.

"Ah," I murmured and trembled. He went on like this for a while, taking an excruciatingly long time to enter me completely, stopping at every step, so I could feel what I was getting, what he was giving me, completely. And so, I assumed, he could feel what I was giving him, without reservation. I wanted it. I held his gaze and held his big hand in both of mine over my head and belonged with him, here, for the first time.

When he was in all the way, when I could feel him pressing against my cervix, I sobbed in pure joy. I knew there was more to go-that I could take more, and I would take more-but my body had to stretch first. For now, I wanted to stroke his face but I couldn't, so I bucked my hips instead, taking just a little more into me. He moaned and leaned close to me. He buried his face in my neck, licking and sucking and I started to tremble again. "Yes," I cooed. "Oh, Eric, yes."

"Please." He'd raised himself up and was looking at me again. It was just one word, but I knew exactly what he needed.

"I love you, Eric," I said, not wavering from his gaze, though my insides were on fire. "I'm yours."

"Oh, Sookie," he said finally and collapsed into me, pressing further and releasing my arms so he could pull me closer. I wrapped my arms around him again, tugging at him, playing with his nipples, trying to get to every part of him at once. He groaned and I'd never felt so powerful. I was drunk with it.

His heavy-lidded eyes looked up at me, his mouth opened slightly, his fangs glinting in the low light. I moaned. I reached up and wrapped my hands around his hair, pulling as hard as I could, trying to-I don't know what. I just needed more of him, and right now. I pulled myself up by his neck and latched on to his mouth. For the second time tonight, I fed him from my tongue, just found fang and stabbed my tongue into it. We both groaned. The spasm that passed through me made every part of me clench and Eric was suddenly moving, pulling out and returning before I could have a chance to miss him.

Something about that made me want to tear up but I refused to let myself. Instead, I took my mouth from his and began sucking and biting down his neck. I wished suddenly he could bruise, that I could leave some mark on him to show I'd been here, that he belonged with me. Instead I traced my way down to his gorgeous chest, buried my nose in the light sprinkling of hair there and teasingly licked his nipple. It was all I could do to hold on and keep my aim true. It wasn't so soft and sweet anymore. A whole three years of pent up need seemed to be flowing out of him and I was more than willing to take it. I wanted it. I groaned as he hit just the right spot. I wanted him.

My hands traced his shoulder to his flank, admiring, memorizing, cherishing every little bit of him.

"Yes," he rasped out and it was almost no more than a croak that vibrated through his chest and onto my lips. "So right... Bite me, my Sookie."

I didn't need to be told twice. I circled his nipple with my tongue once, twice, and on my third go around, I nipped at it and then drove my teeth into his skin as hard as I could. While I was drinking his thick, coppery liquid, Eric seemed to shoot off like a firecracker. He slammed into me and made me buck, sending sparks behind my eyes. Without thinking, my whole body clenched up and I bit again. I held on for deal life.

I licked around the wounds as they healed and I could feel Eric purring above me. I moaned to him, contented for once. I moved to the other nipple and rolled my hips under him, spread my legs wider for him, taking all of him. It might have been Eric's blood, but I felt like I was suddenly strong enough to never let him go. I locked my ankles behind his back and arched up into him, rubbing our bellies together rhythmically.

I laid my head back and watched him moving hard and fast, feeling my body tense and tingle and shoot off warning spasms as my pleasure built. Oddly, he was just the same. Same strong muscles, same athletic prowess. Same look in his eyes. I smiled and mouthed the words, surprised how quick it'd grown to enjoy saying them. It seems crazy to say so, but it never occurred to me that it went both ways before. That he wasn't just staking a claim. He was making an offer.

His smile was so sweet, even with his fang peaking out from his closed lips. I reached my hand up to his neck and tugged him down to me again. His mouth opened and I kissed him. Then I turned my head to the side and pressed his mouth to my neck.

"Drink, baby," I panted as another spasm of pleasure shot through me, and felt myself surge as Eric moved faster. He growled. God, he was amazing. So powerful. He kissed me softly, gently, nibbling that spot I love. He growled and moved his head lower, and in a quick move, his back was against the bed and I was sitting on his lap. And boy was I. God, he was so big. So deep. So...

"Oh, God," I choked out. "Oh, Eric. Ah!" My body went into red alert, wanting more and wanting to get away at once. Prickling sensations began to pulse under my skin, my nipples becoming sensitive to the light little strokes of his chest hair as he moved me on him.

I looked into his eyes. We were so close this way. I arched into him and ground down onto him with all my weight. He found the perfect angle and I cried out from the sheer power of it.

My whole body tensed and clamped down, sparks flying across my vision. My body seemed to liquify and turn back to bones and muscles in pulses. Eric didn't stop, didn't slow down. He just kept moving me and I keep driving us further and further. He began mauling my breasts with his mouth.

Oh... God. It didn't stop. It slowed and I regained my senses enough to open my eyes. Eric was staring at me in wonder. I wanted to caress his cheek, I wanted to kiss him, but I couldn't form words. I was nothing but a whimpering mass of goo. Eric took over, raising and lowering me like I weighed nothing, and driving me higher and higher until I the rushing started in my ears again and my whole body bloomed with pleasure.

"Look at me, lover," growled Eric. His voice swam to me from a distance, I was overwhelmed by what he was doing to my body. Oh sweet Jesus. He was taking me over, the intensity and... love in his eyes almost as powerful as his thrusts.

I chanted some nonsense or other, but it didn't matter because the delicious tension was all I had energy for. I opened my eyes and forced them to focus. I found Eric's face in no time. He brought my face to his, his blue eyes clearer than I'd ever seen them, and he was happy, in love, smiling like a vampire fool. God, I love this man. I lurched forward and Eric did the rest of the work of the kiss. I held on to him as well as my noodly limbs would allow.

I groped his head, bringing it to my neck. "Puh-please, baby. Please."

"My Sookie," he growled and ground me down onto him slowly and making a new kind of keening pleasure shoot through me. This man was a god. More sparks ricocheted through me, making my body clench in warning again. I sobbed. "My Sookie."

All I could do was nodd.

He breathed into my neck and licked. The soft wetness of his tongue set off a new wave of shivers. I swallowed hard, trying to remember to breath. I tried to regain my coordination, rocking my hips in time with him. He groaned loudly and laughed. I was almost there again. Almost. I just needed... I pressed his head into my neck a little harder, as if I could force him to do anything.

He licked again and my whole body convulsed. I laughed. I don't know why. It just seemed like the thing to do. Everything was ticklish.

I felt his fangs tickle my jugular and I undulated against him, begging with my body. Oh, Lord... He was drawing this out... Why was he drawing this out?

Finally, he reared back, took my face in his hand and kissed me hard. I tried to kiss back, but he was too fast for me and before I knew it, he was holding me in place and staring at me, smiling with devious eyes. He growled, "_My_ Sookie..." I nodded as well as I could with him holding my jaw in his big hand. He pulled me onto him again and then bent again to my neck.

Just before he bit, just before he sent me over the edge and into total insanity, I heard him yell, "And I do... not... _share_!"

The world dissolved, went black, and all that existed was Eric, me and where our bodies met. I pulled him tight to me and he did the same to me and it all felt... like home.

.

.

**Eric's POV**

I kissed her shoulder, her side, the top of her breast. She did not stir, did not even murmur. But I found myself desperate to keep contact with her. Desperate. Is that what this love will do to me?

No. I will not think it. Not now. I caressed her neck and leaned over her, watching her relaxed face. Gently, I kissed her lips. My Sookie. My stomach twisted and my chest felt like it would explode. Finally, truly, without any hesitation. My Sookie. Such a gift.

I kissed her again and found I could not stop, didn't want to. A bloody tear dropped onto her face and I let it fall. I let them all fall. Once again, my woman has surprised me. Just when I was beginning to think I would never have her, that she would never relent, she plunges ahead. She's stopped hiding. I smiled at her and kissed her again, tasting my tears on her skin. And strangely, so have I. I feel contented. Perhaps even overjoyed, and the giddiness spread through me, animating me in a way no magic ever has. With this one human I could be fully myself. I no longer needed to hide, either. She had looked at me with those eyes, stripped as they were of defenses, and told me she loved me. I thought back to when she kissed my old, long-healed wounds. Yes, all of me.

She had all of me now.

I pulled her close and delighted in he strong, steady heartbeat and the way her body sought mine out by instinct. I nuzzled my face in her hair. She was mine. Finally. _Finally_. Mine.

.

.

**Sookie's POV**

I don't know how late it was when I woke, groggy and with a headache. I started awake, from some dream I couldn't remember but still filled me with dread. As I climbed out of sleepiness, I felt Eric's strong arm around my waist, pulling me close.

"Can I get you something, my Sookie?" The tenderness in his voice made my insides contract. He kissed my neck and the shiver rippled through my whole body. I don't know why I thought it but right away, I thought of the bruises I had this morning. I was sure I'd have more now. I squeezed my thighs together and felt a dull ache. "Are you well?"

I poked and prodded at myself mentally. I guess I was OK. I didn't know. Tonight had been... so much.

I moved to sit up and Eric stuck to me like a limpet, his cheek on my hair. _Well, someone was a snugglebug tonight,_ I thought, surprised. My hand found his and held it to my stomach.

"What time is it?" I asked as my eyes settled on the bright, full moon filtering in through the curtains. I blinked a few times.

Eric's mouth was at my ear again. "Four o'clock." He cuddled me back to him as I propped my arm on my pillow. "The moon is beautiful tonight. I bet your shifter is enjoying himself right now."

I closed my eyes and smiled, shaking my head.

"Full moon's not till tomorrow night."

We were quiet for a minute as I felt my new reality settle around me. I was Eric's. I'd said it out loud, over and over again. I told him I loved him. And I survived.

I was so relaxed, but my body still tried to tense up. I stared out the window, breathing deep and trying to calm myself. Just because I loved him and told him so didn't mean I was suddenly a different person.

Except... Well, except that he felt real nice right about now and I didn't have the will to struggle out of his arms. I pressed myself back against him and felt myself mold to all the planes of his body. In the minutes that passed, I watched the moonlight glint off the trees in the yard, watched the leaves blow in the breeze. My body remembered what it felt like to have a fresh breeze on me for the first time in more than a month.

"I can't believe I went outside today." I cleared my throat. I sounded like a frog.

Eric's hand stroked me proprietarily and I tried to get used to it. And then I felt him laugh into my shoulder. It surprised me.

"What?" I asked, turning my head a little to look over my shoulder. Even I could hear the smile in my voice.

He kissed my neck and the light in his eyes danced. "Now you're surprising yourself." I shrugged and relaxed against him. I could feel him humming behind me.

"You will be able to leave the house soon." He kissed the nape of my neck. "I will take you for walks in the moonlight. We'll dance under the stars. You will accompany me to Fangtasia and all will see that you are mine." I gave him a look. He nuzzled my neck until I wasn't breathing right and added, "And I am _yours_, dear one." He paused and wove his fingers into mine and nipped my earlobe. I giggled in surprise. I turned to look at him and he waggled his eyebrows at me. I swear, if he wasn't a vampire, I would think he was an imp, which no doubt were real and living among us. "We can recreate all those places we made love around your house when I was ill. I'll bet we could find a few more, too."

The room got 10 degrees hotter.

"Oh," I blushed and turned away from him. I bit my lip. My mind was racing, remembering how we'd christened every part of this house and the outside of it, too. And then my mind stalled. _Making love._ He'd called it making love. Not "taking me." Or "having me." Making love. My insides went from electrified to goo in 2.5 seconds. I sighed. Eric moved his hand up to my breast and teased his palm over my suddenly very stiff nipple.

"I think the lady likes it," he teased, nipping at my neck again. I started moving against him even though I was definitely too worn out to go again. I laughed in a choked sort of way.

"Tell me, my Sookie."

"Hmm?" Sue me. It was the best I could do right then. My body was in full revolt. The tingles were starting and he wasn't even doing much.

He tugged my nipple and my brain froze.

"What do you want to do when you go outside again?"

I sucked in a deep breath and forced myself to open my eyes and look out the window. I concentrated as best I could and slapped Eric's hand away from my breast. "Quit," I huffed. "Let me think."

Eric just moved his hand down to cup my ribcage, weighing my breast against his hand.

I watched the wind and thought about the outside. Panic spiked, and I breathed deep to keep it down.

"I miss the little things," I started, thinking back to the time... before. "Sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee. Visiting with friends... Oh, I really miss tanning." I frowned. "I'm so pale now."

Eric traced a finger over my shoulder and my whole body did this shimmy thing. "Mmm... yes. I miss the taste of sunlight on your skin, dear one." Eric kissed my shoulder.

"And I'd like to go to the library and see if they got any fun books in."

I felt his lips drag against my skin as he nodded. "What else?"

"I'm not ready to go back to work just yet. I couldn't stand all those brains yelling at me. I'll have to practice some time. Hey! Maybe I could go see Tara! She's having a baby, you know."

Eric murmured but I had a feeling he wasn't listening anymore. I moved on because I didn't want to think about a baby, either.

He licked my neck and whispered, "Will you come to my home? When you are well?" I tensed and Eric tensed and my brain got scrambled. "Just for a weekend."

I tried to imagine myself in Eric's house and this whole thing.. this whole dating thing, seemed insane, impossible. But maybe that's what Dr. Gumby was talking about. I couldn't see it. I just... couldn't.

I put my other hand over the two of ours that were already strung together. I nodded slowly, practicing. I felt like I was falling off a cliff. "Just for the weekend," I said, but my vocal chords failed me, so it came out more like a wheeze. "Since, you know, you're my beau now."

I said it just to see how it felt to say out loud. As I expected, it sounded nuts. I focused out the window, concentrating on the big glowing moon in the sky as Eric grabbed me to him and growled against my neck. "Your beau. I like it."

Predictably, Eric started moving against me and tickling me and in no time I was wiggling against him and felt the laughter bubble up from my belly. I turned and buried my face in his chest. My cheeks hurt from smiling. I couldn't believe it. Eric was... No, I could say this. _Eric Northman was mine._

"You know what else I want when I can get outside again?" I asked into Eric's chest, and I noticed that that silver burn Dr. Gumby had given him was was fully healed now. "I'd kill for good old-fashioned fast food-a burger and fries and slushy from Sonic."

"Well, that, my Sookie, you can have now. Call Bobby tomorrow. He will deliver it right away. I'll tell him to expect your call." His fingers were tracing my back, tickling me.

I snorted. "Yeah, right."

Eric pulled me away to look at me, his brows drawn down over his eyes dangerously.

I put my hand on his face and smiled. "Oh, baby, he's mostly decent enough to my face. He can't help his thoughts."

I heard Eric growl. "Mostly?" I waved my hand and leaned in and kissed him on his pec, licking his nipple. "Don't distract me, lover."

I mumbled into his chest. "He's an asshole, Eric, you know that. I know you tell him to be nice, because I hear it in his head. And he tries. But he just can't stand that you picked me over him."

_Shit_. I didn't mean to let that one slip. But then again, Eric can't be surprised that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants in his pants. Hell, he was _everyone's_ type. I reached around and squeezed his butt, because I knew I could.

"I mean… Um, that he can't stand that I take you away from all your important work and your businesses and duties as sheriff. That's all."

I didn't think he bought it, but he also didn't seem to care much right now. Eric purred against me at my touch and flexed against my hand. I sighed. I can't help it. Living or dead, Eric has the best butt around.

"It's settled then," Eric finally said, and I could tell by his speech that his fangs had made an appearance. "You will call Bobby. Often. You will send him on errands. I want him to get used to tending to his Mistress."

I rolled my eyes but before I could reply, Eric rolled on top of me and started scooting down my body. He said he wanted to check my bruises. And he did. Three times.

**.**

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A/N:** So y'all, did you like it? I hope so. This is what I wished CH had done in DITF instead of that lame "Love you" scene. After all that build up we needed more.

OK, so the next night will be Sookie and Eric's second date. What do you think Eric will choose to do? What are Eric's favorite things that he's going to share with Sookie? Lay it on me.


	27. Chapter 27: The Morning After

**A/N:** First of all, look at this link. You need to see it to fully appreciate a part of this story. Just saying: http:/www(dot)flickr(dot)com / photos / chicagokristi / 940641403 /

(Minus the spaces and the (dot)s of course.)

Second of all, I can't believe how amazing you all are! More than 100 reviews in 24 hours and now Healing Blood has joined the amazing Thousand-Year-Old Viking club. You all blow me away and you really did give me a great birthday present. I'm just sorry the follow up took so long to get out. As a reward (hopefully), I'm giving you two chapters at once—well a chapter and a half. It was originally one, mammoth chapter but at more than 30 pages, even I didn't want to read it. So I split it in two. Tell me if it works for you.

A big shout out, again, to my beta moxie mo. If you haven't read her second-place Dead Pan winner, Darkly Dreaming (a parody of Dexter), go read it now. I'll wait. I've never seen the show and it was just brilliant to me.

And now on with the show.

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**Disclaimer:** Charlaine Harris is sole owner of Sookie and Eric. But a few others of these lovelies are mine.

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**Last time on Healing Blood:**

_"Well, that, my Sookie, you can have now. Call Bobby tomorrow. He will deliver it right away. I'll tell him to expect your call." His fingers were tracing my back, tickling me._

_I snorted. "Yeah, right."_

_Eric pulled me away to look at me, his brows drawn down over his eyes dangerously._

_I put my hand on his face and smiled. "Oh, baby, he's mostly decent enough to my face. He can't help his thoughts."_

_I heard Eric growl. "Mostly?" I waved my hand and leaned in and kissed him on his pec, licking his nipple. "Don't distract me, lover."_

_I mumbled into his chest. "He's an asshole, Eric, you know that. I know you tell him to be nice, because I hear it in his head. And he tries. But he just can't stand that you picked me over him."_

_Shit. I didn't mean to let that one slip. But then again, Eric can't be surprised that every Tom, Dick and Harry wants in his pants. Hell, he was everyone's type. I reached around and squeezed his butt, because I knew I could._

_"I mean… Um, that he can't stand that I take you away from all your important work and your businesses and duties as sheriff. That's all."_

_I didn't think he bought it, but he also didn't seem to care much right now. Eric purred against me at my touch and flexed against my hand. I sighed. I can't help it. Living or dead, Eric has the best butt around._

_"It's settled then," Eric finally said, and I could tell by his speech that his fangs had made an appearance. "You will call Bobby. Often. You will send him on errands. I want him to get used to tending to his Mistress."_

_I rolled my eyes but before I could reply, Eric rolled on top of me and started scooting down my body. He said he wanted to check my bruises. And he did. Three times._

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**Chapter 27: The Morning After**

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_Bonita-_

_Treat my Sookie like a queen today. I want her pampered and well rested when I rise this evening. Encourage her to sleep as late as possible. Wake her only for meals. I know she'll fight you, but find a way to give her a massage. Draw her a bath. Flowers will arrive for her this morning. Place them in her bedroom. Destroy the old flowers. They are wilting Bobby will be by at precisely 1 p.m. to bring my Sookie a meal from the Sonic. He will also be dropping off a few things for me for this evening. Bobby knows where to put them. _

_I want you to inform me immediately via voicemail if Bobby is anything less that perfectly cordial and solicitous. Bobby is at your beck and call. Do not hesitate to use him for anything you are unable to do yourself. In fact, I insist that you use him for things you can do yourself. _

_Finally, I want a fire in the fireplace and you gone by the time I rise. My Sookie and I want no interruptions. _

_~ Mr. Northman_

_. . _

_. .  
_

**Sookie's POV**

"Open up."

I felt like dead weight-immobile, heavy and utterly thoughtless. It was a miracle.

Something nudged my side and I grunted in a none-too-ladylike way. Sue me. I was enjoying the first dreamless sleep I'd had in months. I ran my hand out to the side but didn't find Eric. I felt my brows furrow and the effort wore me out. I slumped back against the pillow.

I felt myself drifting, but then a soft shove rattled me out of it. Again. Just like that, terror flooded me and I flung my arms out. Praise be. They weren't bound. I sniffed and all I could smell was... butter? And eggs? There were no butter or eggs in the cave. I shuddered and my stomach flipped, remembering what was there. I could live pretty happy without ever seeing any of that again. I swallowed and groaned and felt a soft hand on my shoulder.

"You're OK, Sookie. You're OK. Look at me."

With effort, I peeled an eye open, almost sure I was going to see Thing One grinning that terrible grin back at me. Instead, Bonnie's hand went to my hair, smoothing it away from my face and holding me down as I looked around frantically and felt my heartbeat in my ears. _OK. Everything was OK. I was home._ I fell back into the pillows and felt the surge of panic leave me as quickly as it came. Now I was really tired.

"Good gravy, Bonnie, don't scare me like that." I shook my head, trying to get everything to settle back in place.

She was smiling but her eyes were hard and professional, assessing my state. Lord knows what she was seeing. I looked away and in my addled state tried to find where the smell was coming from. I found a bowl on the bedside with my favorite eggs and grits.

I coughed and struggled to sit up while my arms still were getting the message that it was time to wake up.

"You can go back to sleep in a minute. I just want to get some breakfast in you."

I nodded and looked around, swallowing again, trying to settle my stomach. I'd be damned if I started the day losing my breakfast. My eyes landed on the cluster of Eric photos on the dresser. Before I knew it, I'd turned toward them. I rested my head on my hand and remembered cuddling myself back against Eric this morning. God, he was so amazing. He'd been so sweet and reverent. _Can I get you something, my Sookie?_ My heart melted all over again and I nearly teared up. But I stopped myself. I was going to stop crying so much, and I was going to do it starting now. Besides, I was too tired to think about what all this might mean. I'd think about it later, when I was well and truly awake.

Bonnie started spooning grits and eggs into my mouth and I pulled back. I might be half asleep and recovering from something awful, but I was no baby. I could feed myself.

"Give it here," I croaked out.

Bonnie gave me a look like she wasn't sure I was awake enough not to spill food all over myself, but I grabbed at the bowl anyway. When I was halfway through the bowl, Bonnie eased herself up off the bed and left the room. For a brief second I wondered what Gran would think of all the eating in bed I'd been doing lately.

When the bowl was empty, I placed it on the bedside table and drifted back to sleep, thinking about my beau, My Eric, and it was almost like he was here with me in the sunshine of my bedroom.

. .

. .

For a miracle, I fell into sleep like I was falling off a building. And when I came to again, it wasn't with any thrashing or panic. It was because something seemed nice. Sweet. Earthy.

I rolled over and buried my nose in the cool sheets and tried to fall back to sleep. But the movement made my thighs rub together, which that made me think of last night. And that made me blush all over and tingle in my sore parts. I smiled into the mattress. A ripple of pleasure shot up my spine and I didn't know how I'd make it to sundown without him. I couldn't remember feeling this way with Bill. But then, I'd been so inexperienced I just took it for granted that a vampire would have to sleep somewhere else. Now that I knew that some vampires slept in bed with their girlfriends during the day, I wanted it. And I missed him.

When I peeled my eyes open, I got a good shot of Bonnie's butt and heard her clear her throat and think—Oh gracious. I did not need that image of her husband's... ah... anatomy in my head so early after waking up. Lord, that was going to be burned into my brain forever now. I threw up my shields as quickly as I could and the force of it made me whimper.

When she stepped back, I was left to stare at the biggest bouquet of the... um... most sexually explicit flowers I'd bet Eric could find. Good gravy, they were even more suggestive than the one he'd given me after the horrible René incident. They were thick and long, flanked by soft, round, red petals at their bases. And I had to admit that they were beautiful-and that they just made me miss Eric all the more. I swallowed hard as heat flooded between my thighs.

Mixed in with them were white calla lillies. Of course they were. Can't have one without the other. I rolled my eyes and Bonnie caught me.

"Oh.. uh..." I looked up and saw Bonnie blushing from head to toe. I wanted to laugh but I was too mortified. Despite my shields, I could hear that Bonnie had caught the lusty look in my eyes and that last night must have been quite eventful, indeed. I looked away from her, but my eyes went right to the outtakes of Eric, and that didn't help. Not with Bonnie there, anyway. And then her thoughts went back to her husband and I buried my head under the pillows, the effort of blocking her wearing me out all over again.

When I peeked out at her, Bonnie's hand went nervously to her hair and she fluffed the short, brown curls and straightened her back. Then she strode efficiently up to me, placed the card accompanying the flowers on the bed next to me and patted my hand.

"You try to sleep more, now, you here?"

I closed my eyes and let my shoulders slump into the mattress. I didn't open them until I could hear that Bonnie was out of the room. Lordy. I concentrated on breathing and thought about Eric last night after... all that. After... _OK I could say this._ After we told each other we were in love. After Eric told me he was mine and I told him I was his. My whole insides shuddered in happiness and another wave of surprise and a little bit of dread. I didn't want to wonder whether it would last, so I just concentrated on the look of total adoration in Eric's eyes as he kissed and licked his way down my stomach and then kissed my bruises.

It was near the sweetest thing anyone ever did for me—well, next to how Eric healed my wounds last week. I felt dizzy and eased the pillow up off my head and rolled onto my back, closing my eyes in surrender.

. .

. .

Mmmmm, salty. Sweet. Oh, _fried_. I swallowed the drool pooling in my mouth and inhaled again. I was sitting under a tree. It was sunny and my skin felt warm. And then I took a bite of the best burger I ever had.

I groaned and stretched and slowly became aware of sounds. The door closing. Bonnie's distinctive shuffling through the kitchen. And a new brain. Or rather, an unexpected brain, at least.

_Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind... Fucking Sonic. Shit! Courteous and—_

I sat up and sniffed again. Oh gracious me, but Bobby had brought me Sonic! I folded over in laughter and hugged a pillow because Eric wasn't there to kiss.

Sure, it was high-handed, but in the best possible way.

_My Eric._ I swallowed and felt a shiver ripple through my insides and bloom between my legs. My Eric had his day man come all the way out to Bon Temps to bring me Sonic.

Well bless his unbeating heart, this was going to be fun.

I pulled back the blankets and realized that I was still naked. I looked down at myself and realized I must have taken more blood than I thought last night because the bruises were just pale yellow streaks on my thighs now. For a second I flashed to what I looked like a month ago-hell, two weeks ago-and thought I might lose my breakfast. But I beat back the image real quick. _You're here now, Sookie, and the only injuries you have are from the best sex of your life with the vampire you love._

I took a deep breath and did the muscle-relaxation routine. It did the trick. When I opened my eyes, I felt down my body, felt how healed it was instead of how broken and moved my hands to the side preparing to push myself up and toward the fried goodness waiting for me in the kitchen.

My right hand landed on something cool and crisp. Paper.

Oh, the note. My eyes shifted right to the gracious plenty of a bouquet on my dresser. I laughed and shook my head. Penis flowers and fast food: Leave it to Eric. I slid the little card out of the envelope.

_My Beloved Sookie,_

_You made me the happiest man, living or dead, last night. Relax today and know that these flowers are standing at attention for you just as I will be when I rise. _

_Yours,_

_E_

I clasped the note to my bare breasts. Lord have mercy. It hardly seems fair for him to be able to work me up like this while he's dead for the day. I reread the note and scanned the flowers and rolled my eyes and bit my lip and fell deeper in love with him. It was almost like a physical sensation. I've never been up real high, but I thought maybe this was what it felt like to be woozy at the top of some big sky scraper. If I didn't think he'd drain me for it, I'd call him a scamp. My big, Viking scamp of a vampire. Mmm. My nipples tightened as I thought about the gleam he got in his eyes sometimes.

I closed my eyes and shook my head. _Get a grip, Sookie. You've got hours before he rises and it'd be just like him to work you into a lather so you're ready to explode by the time he rises. _

What a stinker.

I really should have been more upset than I was.

Then I caught a note at the bottom of the card:

_PS—My Sookie, wear the red dress tonight. I don't believe there are any rules barring me tearing it off of you tonight. _

My body responded to his words without my permission and my mind reached out to find him. Tucked safely under the guest room closet. I sighed.

For a second I thought of getting back in bed and doing something about the state Eric had put me in, but my stomach growled and that was that. Eric, and my feelings for him, would have to wait.

When I got to the threshold of the kitchen, I hung back in total amazement. I knew Eric wanted Bobby to bring me Sonic. I didn't think he meant the whole restaurant.

"... burger, Sonic cheeseburger, Sonic bacon cheeseburger, bacon cheeseburger on toast and somethin' called the cheddar red pepper supersonic burger on toast." I stood gap-mouthed in the kitchen doorway, amazed at the spread of fried foods before me. Laid all across the kitchen table and the counters were little cardboard boxes filled with burgers and sandwiches and sides and... well, just about everything you could think of. The counters were full of cups—at least 20 of them. No wonder the smell of it woke me from a dead sleep.

Bobby took a deep breath and continued with his litany (a word-of-the-day). "I got the regular corndog and the foot-long chili cheese dog, all your chicken sandwiches and the jumbo popcorn chicken. And then one each of all the sides: tater tots, tater tots with chili and cheese. Onion rings, fries, chili cheese fries. And, of course, apple slices."

Dismissively, he added, "And there are some salads over there."

Then Bobby looked up at me, shocked and exhausted and irritated that he had to see me. I couldn't even smile. I couldn't believe what was in front of me.

. .

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**Bobby's POV**

_Courteous and kind... Courteous and kind... courteous and..._ Shit.

I shook my head and tried on a smile. I heard my jaw crack. I had hoped to get out of here before the bi—Master's woman—woke up, but no such luck. Or... no... I looked directly at her and thought about how lucky I was to get to see her smiling face. Right. Lucky. Smiling face. _Courteous. Kind._

My head hurt.

She was wearing Master's white cashmere robe. The one I'd picked out and hand-delivered. I just knew she did it on purpose. I know her clothes are ratty, but she does have th—_Fuck._

I closed my eyes and tried to regroup. _Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind... Courteousandkind._

"Good afternoon, Miss Stackhouse, a pleasure to see you again. I didn't know what you liked, so I got one of each."

If you gritted your teeth while you smiled, it still counted, right? The blond imbec—the lady didn't move. I'd say she'd been struck stupid but that was... well, that was— She just stood staring at the food like a hog at a trough. Judging by the sorry shape of the house, I wouldn't be surprised if—

"You let me know what your favorites are and I'll be sure to bring what pleases you on future visits."

I crossed my hands in front of me, cupping them over where my balls should have been. Hell, might as well have put those in one of those greasy boxes, too. I could hear the dead tone to my voice, but at least I got it out. Almost verbatim—just what Master told me say. _You bring her whatever she likes and you tell her to let you know what her favorites are so you can be sure to please her on future visits. I want my Sookie happy._ It had been a command. And unlike the chicky in front of me, I was good at following directions. And I wanted to make the Master happy.

_Shit_. I smiled so hard I thought my molars would crack. _Courteous and kind._

God, my skin itched with the need to get out of here. To get away from this armpit and back to civilization. I had meetings with contractors and accountants to carry out for Master. I was just about ready to wrap up some big deals for him. But then I remembered what else his email said. _My Sookie is your top priority today and every day. She says jump, your feet are off the floor before you ask, "How high?" I knew you'd understand. You have great survival instincts._

So I'd dragged my ass out here just to make this barmaid's ass bigger—

_Oh shit_.

But when I looked up, the... the... Sookie's eyes were wider and soft. I tried to restrain my shock and failed. Miserably.

"Thank you, Bobby. For all this." She hugged her arms around her as she leaned on the doorframe. She turned her head a little and I could see the bite mark on her neck. The skin on my neck prickled and my dick twitched. I swallowed hard. "What's in the cups?"

The little blond sl—I mean, Mistress turned back to me in a flash and was smiling at me, her eyes zeroed in on me like a cat tracking a canary. I had no doubt she was as lethal as she looked. She could take me out for thinking the wrong thing.

So as much as I hated to do it, I smiled and... ugh... bowed to her.

"Those are the most popular drinks Sonic offers, Miss Stackhouse," I said, shifting my weight from one foot and then to another. God, I hope I got it right. Master would drain me if I didn't. "I tried to get one of each, but then the lady at the Sonic told me there were something like 100,000 drink combinations you could make off the menu, and, well, my car just isn't that big." I nodded to the counter full of white cups with neon-colored drinks in them. "I think we've got cherry limeade, strawberry limeade, some diet limeades, lemon-berry fruit slushies, blue coconut slush and... Hell, I forget what-all is there. I hope one of them is your favorites."

I crushed a napkin between my sweaty palms. I did not sign up for this. She walked slowly over to the counter and peered into each one before taking up a bright pink one and sucking with abandon. Must be what Master likes—

Nope. _Courteous and kind._

She took a swallow and smiled. "This is amazing. Thank you so much, Bobby."

I watched her with disdain but made myself relax my shoulders and smile anyway. This bitch held my life in my hands. _Shit_. I looked up at her nervously and I could see her smiling cruelly. I raised my eyebrows in defeat.

"Yup, Master said you had a craving and..." I flapped my arms out around me like the sitting duck I was. "... I live to serve."

I smiled at her and felt exhausted. My shoulders sagged off my spine-what was left of it, anyway. All this ass kissing isn't in my nature. Especially not for a human— Nope. Not going there. _Courteous and kind._

"I hope it's to your liking," I said as the... ah, blond... moved over to the table and pulled out the tater tots, popping one in her mouth. The sound she made when she tasted it made me want to retch but I held my lunch down and strapped my smile on my face like a gag.

She grinned at me like she had me trapped, and, hell, she did. I watched her dig through the 18 sandwiches and prayed she didn't pick the bacon cheeseburger on toast. That was my favorite and maybe after she was done at the trough something might be left over for the rest of us.

_Fuck_.

The little blond glanced at me through her lashes and her mouth curled into a smile as her hand drifted over the bacon cheeseburger area, paused over the toaster... and moved off to the side, grabbing the basic cheeseburger. Without meaning to I sighed in relief.

She squatted over the old kitchen chair and let her weight fall into it like a load dropped from a crane. She loomed over her food like a dog guarding his b—nope, like a nice young lady. _Shit_.

"Well, c'mon you two. I'm not eating all this on my own. Grab what you want and let's have us a sit-down lunch."

_Hell_.

I had hoped to get in and get out without actually having to see the fu—my mistress—or having to face her bizarre ability. I mean, her gift. _Her gift. Holy hell_. I rubbed my face and nodded wearily and planted my ass in the old plastic-covered chair across from my Mistress.

_Shit_. I couldn't believe it when Master had called her that in his morning email. _My Sookie says you're an asshole, and can't control your thoughts. You can and you will. Lucky for you, your mistress is more forgiving than I am. So instead of simply disposing of you, I'm giving you another chance. Show my Sookie the thorough, attentive day man you really are. You are to answer her calls promptly. You are to move heaven and earth to accommodate her whims. Show me my faith is well placed. I will be asking after you when I rise._

I sighed. This job just got a whole lot harder. I grabbed the bacon cheeseburger toaster and the cheese fries, corralling them to one corner as I got up to grab me a basic Coke. When I sat at the table, I smiled up at my _Mistress_ and popped a fry into my mouth. The saltiness did nothing but grind into my wounds.

"Thanks for coming all the way out here," she said, tearing into the burger and following it with a wet slurp of whatever fruity drink she'd chosen. "You won't have to do it for long. I'll be better and out of this house soon and I'll be able to make my own Sonic runs."

I wanted to stab myself with a rusty kitchen knife just so I could go to the hospital.

"Man, this is good," she squealed like a pi— nice young lady. Nice young lady. _Hell. Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind._ This assignment was going to kill me—one way or the other.

I heard her maniacal braying—I mean the chiming of her laughter—and looked up. She was eyeing me with glee. _Shit_. She knew just what I was thinking and she was... the bitch was toying with me. I looked her over. The Master's robe, fresh bite mark on her neck... I wanted to... Well, what I wanted to do would surely get me drained, so I'd settle for high-tailing it out of here.

But no. The bit— Mistress was watching me and wanted me to stay. So I was here. I dropped my head again and gnawed on my burger like I was trying to cut off my own leg to escape a bear trap.

I glanced over at the maid and nodded at her as she politely sipped from a cup of bright blue liquid. Then I heard the sloppy smacking of Mistress's mouth against her food and the slurping of her drink. Shit. You'd think the woman hadn't eaten in days. I tried to stop them, but images came to mind that told me what she'd probably done to work up such an appetite. Sookie giggled and my stomach turned. Yup. I'm sure I was right.

I looked out the kitchen window to where my car was idling. There was a boatload of stuff to bring in. I swear, at this rate he'd be moved in by the end of the month. I shivered at the thought and covered it by coughing around my straw and shaking the ice in my cup.

The room was suddenly quiet. Shit, what did I think now? My eyes slid over to Sookie and she was looking at me with a surprised, hopeful look on her face. Her cheeks were flushed. I'd bet her heart was racing but I'm just a human, so I couldn't tell.

She bit her lip and did her version of thinking. When she opened her mouth a few long minutes later, I thought she'd stuff it with another tater tot. Instead she asked, "You know Eric pretty well, right?"

Fuck. She wanted small talk. I rested my elbows on the table and nodded, giving in. I chewed on my food to keep from crying.

"You worked for him for a while?"

I nodded again and ran my hand behind my neck, under the collar of my dress shirt. Wearing my best dress shirt to sit in a crappy farmhouse and play 20-questions with a barmaid. What had happened to my life? I swallowed and rubbed harder, trying to remind myself that my ass was on the line. _Courteous and kind._

"'Bout eight years now, I'd reckon."

She nodded and turned back to her drink as if the gears got stuck in that brain of hers.

After a few minutes, the silence was killing me. My fries were gone. I was down to the backwash in my cup. I was itching to finish my duties and get back to town.

"How can I help you, Miss Stackhouse?" I choked out. "I mean, not that I don't love my time with you, but if there's something you need, I'd be pleased to do it."

I glanced up and the bitch was wiping her mouth with her napkin. She puckered her brow and I froze. _Shit_. I was gonna get killed.

I smiled as nice as I could and held out my hands in front of myself solicitously. "Truly."

She nodded absently and hugged the robe tighter around her, and I swear she... sniffed the lapel. I so did not want to know what that was about.

"Actually there is something you can do for me," she said, and her voice was less grating than I was used to. Soft, wistful almost. She was biting her lip. "Y'know the gifts you brought for Eric to give me last week?" I groaned internally. I did not want to think about having to shop for underwear and trashy novels so Master could entertain his pet. I sighed and nodded helplessly. I knew there was a '_Jump_' coming. "Well... We have a date tonight and... I'd like to do something nice for him. Get him something small. Something he'd like. But we've spent most of our time here." She looked around and for a second she almost looked normal... and tired. "And I don't know what little thing to get him.

"You've worked for him for a long time. You have any thoughts? If you could get him something?"

The question was so surprising, I found myself pressing back in the seat and lifting the front legs off the ground. Jesus, if I could get anything for Master? If I could give him a gift... a token... I rubbed my hand over my face trying not to let my thoughts show on my face. And I realized that was useless and I dropped them. I knew what I'd get him. I'd get him a nice pair of cufflinks from Tiffany's I'd seen in a catalog a few months ago. They were meant to look like knots. They were made of brushed silver-but I was sure I could get them made special in silver-tone or gold. I always thought they'd look nice on him, especially with his sky-blue French-cuff shirt. I swallowed and grabbed my drink. My throat was dry.

"Cuff links, huh?"

The chair landed back on the ground with a thump and I bit down hard, my teeth rattling in my skull. My eyes shot to her. I'd be damned if she'd give him my gift. No way. No how.

"I don't know anything about cuff links. Can you show me where to find them? I've got a computer upstairs."

I looked at her, my eyes drifting from her swollen lips covered in grease to the Master's puncture marks on her neck to the expanse of white cashmere that was covering her lady business. Shit, to think that the thing he wanted most was under that fabric made me physically nauseous. I swallowed down my bile. _Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind. Courteous and ki—_

"Sure thing." _How high? _

The chairs scraped behind us as we stood and I followed the bi—Sookie—to the stairs. She moved quickly, much more quickly than when I first arrived a week ago. She swam in the robe and it trailed behind her like a train. I walked heavily on the floors I knew Master had had fixed up and peered at all the greying old photos on the wall. The old lady looked nice at least. I'll give her that.

. .

. .

**Sookie's POV**

_Shit... time she spends with him... don't know a thing 'bout him... fucking— Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind. Courteous and kind._

Then he started reciting sports scores in his head so I couldn't hear him. I'll give him credit: He was _trying_ not to be an asshole. Maybe it was a congenital defect or something.

And Bobby was wrong. I knew a lot about Eric. I knew his favorite color and that he loved being a vampire and that he didn't want to move up the vampire hierarchy. I knew the only woman he'd had to his house had been Pam. I knew a monk taught him to read and write and that he'd been tortured as a baby vampire. I knew he must have a human to clean up after him or his house was a pigsty because he didn't know how to use a broom. I knew he was a good lead. I knew he liked sleeping on the left side of the bed, at least at my house. I knew that he was fiercely loyal to those he'd sworn to protect. I knew he'd like to stake Bill but was keeping him alive for my sake. I knew Eric's favorite sexual position was... any.

I bit my lip as we climbed the stairs. But I didn't know that he liked cuff links. And I didn't know what movies he liked. And I didn't know what his house looked like. I didn't know what his real last name was, if he had one. And I didn't know if he slept in a bed at home or in a hidey-hole like Bill. I didn't know what photos hung on his walls or even what music he preferred-though somehow he didn't strike me as a Skynard fan. And I didn't know... any of the little things a girl should know about her man to surprise him with a gift. Hell, the only thing I'd thought of was just laying naked in the guest room when he rose. But that's not much of a date. That's just a... Thursday.

Well, hell. I'm the asshole.

. .

. .

"Good gravy! Three hundred dollars for cuff links? No one even sees them!"

I stared at the page Bobby brought up-he sure was faster with a computer than me, and I guess he'd spent a lot of time fantasizing about what to give Eric. As we cruised around the website my mind was stuck on stupid. Three hundred dollars? I didn't own a single piece of jewelry worth that much. I didn't even know if Gran's favorite pearls were worth that much.

Then again, I was probably sitting in $400 of cashmere, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.

And they didn't even look that interesting to me—just little knots of metal, or little plugs. Or little funny faces.

This didn't seem like the Eric I knew. No, the Eric I knew was more likely to want a cute t-shirt-probably a $200 t-shirt, but a t-shirt nonetheless-than this fancy wrist-jewelry.

What kind of man wore these?

But like always, my body betrayed me. For a second my body temperature shot up, remembering Eric biting off the cuff links from his wrist after he returned from vampire business the other night. Absently, my hand went to my neck and traced the healing puncture wounds there. I wondered if he'd ruined them. The cuff links, that is.

That'd be a twist, wouldn't it? Me replacing something of his that was ruined during sex?

I smiled a small smile and looked back at the screen. I knew my face was red. I didn't look at Bobby.

"Wait! Go back up," I blurted. "What about those?"

I grinned wildly. Now _those_ looked like my Eric. I bit my lip and closed my eyes, my hand pulling the robe tight around me. _Mine_. Gracious. Heat flooded between my legs and I crossed them just for the pleasure of the friction it caused.

I opened my eyes again and couldn't help my smile.

"Yeah. Those are the ones. Can you pick them up today?"

After clicking on the little image and grinning like a loon at them, I looked at Bobby. I couldn't help laughing. Through clenched teeth he nodded. "Of course, Mistress."

I stared at him. I never thought I'd see the day.

. .

. .

**Bobby's POV**

I cracked my neck and rolled my shoulders as my car slid away from the First Congregational Church of Bon Temps, where that barmaid whore told me to bring $150 worth of uneaten fast food.

She'd even had the nerve to look at me like I was crazy when I had the temerity to look shocked at the idea that I'd cart that load of grease somewhere else.

But shit, I'd dip my own self in hot oil if it meant I could get away from her.

So I was driving away from the church, where they were handing out food to the indigent—who by the look of them didn't need any more Sonic—and thinking about my real life. My _real_ job—you know the one, the one involving meetings with architects and notaries and official discussions with Master's stockbroker—when my cell phone rang.

_Bon Temps_

That's all it said on my BlackBerry's screen, but that's all I needed to know. Who else from this god-forsaken town would I need to get in touch with? As far as I knew there were no other fangbanging whores out here that Master wasted his time with. And I do mean wasted. And who else would have the nerve to call me after carting all the way out here just to satisfy her fried food jones? Ugh. My car smelled more like fast-food than normal.

"Miss Stackhouse, how may I serve you?" _You fucking whore._ I sighed in relief. It was nice to be able to be myself again.

There was a pause on the line and for a second I panicked. Maybe she could read my thoughts even through the phone. I didn't know how the freak of nature worked. I swallowed and gritted my teeth.

But instead of getting the tongue-lashing I knew she was capable of, the whore's voice came on quiet and unsure. Almost apologetic—if I thought she might be capable of such an emotion.

"Oh, um, hey, Bobby. Would you mind stopping by and picking up something else for me?" I sure as hell minded, but I wasn't about to give her the satisfaction of tattling to Master. I hadn't forgotten what she'd said to me last week. _So help me I will wipe Eric's chin myself after he drains you..._

"Not at all. Give me a second."

I pulled onto the dusty shoulder of the road and eyed the sign for Route 22. So close.

I flipped open my planner and jotted down the address she gave me, just under my notation from earlier: _Favorite meal: Sonic cheeseburger, plain tater tots, raspberry limeade._ Shit. I couldn't believe I was reduced to being the delivery boy for an ignorant back-woods Barbie.

"Alrighty. I'll get that back to you-framed and wrapped-by 4. And I already called the store and they're holding the cuff links for me." I sighed, this time utterly defeated. I should deck my cousin for telling me that vamps were a quick way to make a buck. If he could see me now... "Anything else I can do for you?"

_Please say no. Please say no._

"Um... Would you mind swinging back by Sonic and getting me an Oreo blast? I don't get it often, but it's my favorite treat. And I figured, since you're coming back and all..."

I grunted and cleared my throat. It was either that or vomit all over my upholstery. I added the exact type of ice cream shake to the list of Things Sookie Likes, which included fast food, lace thongs, flowers and naked pictures of the Master, and swallowed compulsively.

"'Of course. I'll bring it all by shortly."

I disconnected the call, not thinking till a few minutes later that just hanging up on the bitch might be considered rude. Oh well, I figured as I drove past the Route 22 South onramp and toward the northern ramp toward Monroe. Can't do a thing about it now. And shit. I didn't say anything nasty to her and I was playing her errand boy today, so she could just cut me a little fucking slack.

I wiped my brow and prayed she would.

. .

. .

**Sookie's POV**

_Dear Eric,_

_These flowers are nice and all, but a field of them can't compare to your natural and gracious plenty. Until first dark._

_Love,_

_Your Sookie_

_PS—I still like your butt best._

I smirked to myself and the ease and giddiness that washed over me made my skin tingle. I'd been tempted to write, "Come and get me, you big Viking," but I wanted to be classier than that. Even if all I was doing was taping this card and one of those obscene flowers to the wall of the closet above the hidey-hole so he'd see it right as he rose. I wondered if it would start wilting before he got up and snickered to myself.

I stood from my crouching position, adjusting my old terry robe and running my fingers over the big curlers in my hair. I was showered, shaved, plucked and scrubbed. I was smooth as a baby's butt and, sadly, just as pale. I glanced out the window in the guest room and for a miracle didn't feel one lick of panic. I was gonna get outside and into a bikini soon if it killed me. But hopefully it wouldn't.

As I meandered around the room, sneaking a look in the big old garment bag Bobby has hung in the closet and peeking into the bags Bobby had left on the floor of the guest room, my heart palpated wildly. Eric Northman, big, bad vampire sheriff of Area 5 in Louisiana, being of sound mind and dead body, loves Sookie Stackhouse.

That's me. I closed my eyes and gripped my fingers around the wicker footboard of the old twin bed. I swallowed a few times, trying to moisten my now-dry throat. I love Eric Northman. And he loves me. I felt a fluttery happiness in my chest and thought of all the times I felt it before. I'd always thought it was the blood bond.

Well lookey here: Eric's dead for the day and I haven't felt one surge of the blood bond in well over a week, and I'm still ready to swoon right out just at the thought of my vampire beau rising and giving me a good licking.

My hand reached for and caressed my neck. My throat wasn't getting any wetter. But other parts of me were.

Oh. Oh my.

I let myself entertain the thought for a moment but then shook my head and made my way over to the large canvas tote on the floor, monogrammed with a big, swooping LE. I chuckled and tried to figure it. Little Eric? The thought made me laugh so hard my stomach hurt. There's no way big, arrogant Eric would ever call himself little. Hell, even his "Little Eric" he cajoled me into calling a "gracious plenty." I giggled again. Lover Eric? Ha. Well, if anyone qualified for the title of "lover," capital L, it was him.

I reached into the bag and grabbed the small wrapped box on top-you might say I was snooping, but it's my house so I figured I had the right-and stopped short. My brain clicked into place.

Oh my Lord. Leif. Eric had had a bag monogrammed with the initials of one of his alter-egos: Leif Erikson.

I wondered for a moment if the bag came with a stack of fake mustaches and hair dye and prosthetic noses to go with his fake identity, but then I turned my attention back to the gift. I had to admit: I felt like I used to early Christmas morning, when Jason and me would creep out of our bedrooms and try to guess at our gifts. It had to have been 3 in the morning sometimes when we did it. Usually Daddy or Momma would catch us and shoo us back to bed.

I glanced over at the hidey-hole and snickered. No one was shooing me away this time unless it was Bonnie. And I could hear Bonnie humming and setting a load of laundry on the screened in porch.

I looked at the box, wrapped in white wrapping paper and spotted in red. From a distance I thought it was polka-dotted. Up close I could see they looked like red splatters. I marveled. Who would create wrapping paper to look like blood spatters? God, I hoped it was wrapping paper made to look like blood spatters and not real blood spatters.

_Refocus, Sookie. What do you do with a gift you wanna suss out?_ I held it up to my ear and shook it, naturally. It sounded almost hollow. Obviously there wasn't much in there. Something slim that rattled against the already flat box. Gold-plated book mark? Photo of himself-or a part of himself-laminated and mounted? I wouldn't put it past him.

I tucked it back carefully in the bag and was heading back to my room, carefully unrolling the rollers from my hair when I heard the doorbell. For a second panic bloomed in my belly and I steadied myself on the wall, a curler clutched tight in my hand. I felt as sweat sprung up on my upper lip and forehead and I quickly reached out with my mind to try to relax myself. But what I heard surprised me. I'd never heard anything like it. It was like my cell phone in the dead spot near Merlotte's-clear some moments and flickered to nothing the next.

I stood up straight against the wall. What was this? Sookie Stackhouse, This is Your Death?

But the thoughts I did hear were nice, flickering in and out about the fresh country air and truck repair and some kind of food schedule I didn't quite get. And if her mind was any indication, she sure had a mouth on her.

I heard Bonnie approaching the door and when she practically screamed in her mind that the person at the door was "pretty as a picture and just as sweet," I decided to sneak into my bedroom and change. You never want to meet a supernatural being in your bathrobe. That's my rule.

I finished unfurling the curlers from my hair and threw on a pair of jeans and a stained old Merlotte's t-shirt I kept around for cleaning and yard work and walked into the living room. Bonnie was still alive and chatting all friendly-like with whoever this new supernatural creature was.

I don't know what I was expecting, but it wasn't what I got.

She looked like me. I mean, she looked human.

Maybe an inch or two taller than me, shiny chestnut brown hair pulled back under a cowboy hat and tucked into a long, shiny braid, t-shirt and jeans stretched over limbs that were more muscled than mine, that's for sure, feet stuffed into a pair of worn cowboy boots. Her body was long and lean, her assets... modest but perky. She looked a little older than me. I'd peg her at around 30, if I had to. Her eyes were caramel colored. And when she smiled, her face practically shone.

When she spotted me, she grinned wider and tugged her hat from her head. She wiped her hand on her jeans and held it out to me. "Well, shit! The doc ain't tell me you were so purty!" she said, her voice a little nasally. And when I saw the tissue in her other hand and the redness of the nose I knew why. Mouth had a cold. "You got to be Sookie. Getcha ass over here so I can greet you proper!"

Her voice had a twang to it and she said my name like Bill did: Sookeh. In other words, she sounded like everybody within a day's drive of here. This here was a regular southern girl. Gran would have blanched at her language. I, on the other hand, couldn't help my smile. Despite my skepticism, I took her hand.

"How-di-... Ooof!" Suddenly I was pulled into the strange lady's bosoms and she was rocking me and laughing—a laugh so deep it seemed to start in her toes.

"Now, dontcha get polite on me, shit," she said. She pulled back and her eyes were dancing. My spine tingled, uncomfortable in her tight embrace. Luckily—I guess—she dropped me just then and I took two steps back. I eyed her as she sneezed and promised myself I'd wash my hands as soon as she left. "Uh, can I get you something? Tea? A lozenge?"

She looked at me surprised and then laughed, bending over and slapping her knee as she did. "What, this? Shit," she chuckled. "I got what you'd call an occ-u-pa-tional hazard. Pay it no mind." She pulled up the hem of her loose t-shirt and wiped her nose on it. I took another step back and praised the Lord that her t-shirt was long.

She nodded over her shoulder. "These little basterds are lucky they're so cute. Otherwise I wouldn't touch 'em with a 10-foot shit stick."

Thank goodness I had a lot of practice controlling my facial features. I'd known girls like this one here since I was little—grew up in the sticks surrounded by brothers and fathers and uncles and by the time they were grown, they were physically female but acted for all the world like a guy. Lafayette had once called her type a "butch straight girl." I hadn't known what that had meant so I'd just nodded dumbly at him.

Her smile broadened and she looked over her shoulder fondly. I followed her eyes and saw a big crate of mewling, squirming puppy dogs with giant paws and little suckling mouths sitting on my porch.

My heart about melted and I all but scurried across the floorboards and onto my knees in front of them.

They were all piled together in a big ball of cute. And they were all different colors—chocolate brown, black, white as a summer cloud, and even one a soft brown the color of the stranger's eyes. "Aren't they just _precious_?" I breathed.

I was so consumed I only vaguely registered that Mouth was still talking to me. "Well I'm sure glad you like 'em. It'll make picking one a hell of a lot easier."

I gasped as I looked over my shoulder at the stranger, whose weight was now balanced on one hip. She used the sleeve of her t-shirt to wipe her brow. And despite her crude manners and mannish behavior, she was still beautiful.

Now I really did feel like it was Christmas morning. This couldn't be part of Eric's gift for me could it? No way. Eric would never give me anything to detract attention from him. I laughed a little and my stomach felt funny for an entirely different reason. I reached a finger toward the big holes in the crate, wiggling it to try to reach the head of the puppy nearest me. "Really? One for me?" I watched a little squirming pup climb over his brothers and sisters and flop on one of their heads. He promptly fell asleep.

"Sure as shit," she affirmed, and I had to laugh. She approached and squatted down next to me and reached into the crate to soothe her fingers over one bulbous belly. "When the doc told me he had someone who needed me, I was pleased as fuck, I can't tell you."

I was ready to tell her that she'd have to clean up her language in my house but instead I yelped and pulled my finger back from the crate, shocked, my body rippling with panic. I shot stink eyes at the puppy. His mouth was open like he was looking for a treat. Bright red blood was seeping from my finger and I could see a little on his muzzle. I shivered. Then the burning started. It was like I dipped my finger in a bunch of cut peppers. I started shaking my hand out furiously, trying to get the pain to stop.

"Oh!"

"Fuck!" said the stranger as she grabbed my finger towards her, practically knocking me down in the process. This girl didn't know her own strength. "Now ya don't wanna do that."

In a flash, Mouth wrapped my finger in a bandana from her back pocket and pulling a little tube of salve from her pocket. I was suddenly very aware that I was sitting on the porch, out in the open, with a supernatural stranger and with dogs with... poisoned teeth?

Lickety-split, she applied the ointment and my finger stopped burning. I felt a tickle and then a tingle and when she removed the banana a second later, not only wasn't it red or burning, but there wasn't a scratch on my hand.

I looked at her wide-eyed and, sue me, I tried to hear her thoughts. They were suddenly gone. It was like I was outside, in the daytime, with a vampire. Or a...

"Oh..."

I shuffled away from her and found myself pressed with my back up against the wall on the safe side of the door. The inside. I was about to shut the door tight when Mouth bolted towards me and handed me her card.

"Gaddammit!" she said as she stalked toward the door. "Listen here..." But I was done listening. My eyes darted back over to her and her brow was furrowed and she was running her hand over her tangled hair. "Now don't start with that scared horse-shit. I'm Charlene Jane Shrewsberry. People just call me CJ. Or Charlie. I live a few parishes over, in Madison, and I breed these little beauties."

When I pressed myself further against the wall, Bonnie stepped up and pulled Mouth away from me. I saw her pat Mouth's hand and murmur, "Just give her a minute."

I took it. I breathed deep and closed my eyes and concentrated on relaxing the tension in my body. I was safe. I was in my house. I opened my eyes and the pretty lady in front of me didn't seem like a threat. I snorted quietly to myself. Yeah. Famous last words.

"I..." I swallowed and got my bearings. I would be damned if this woman—this CJ—would see me crumple. I stood away from the wall and wrapped my arms around myself, looking at her as hard as I could. "I think you should go."

Mouth looked at me shocked but then started moving toward the door. The relief that washed through me shamed me just a little. But then she seemed to think better of it and paused. She threw her hands up in front of her in the universal gesture for "I come in peace." "Shit, look. Maybe I wasn't clear... Dr. Eugenides sent me?"

She said it like a question, like maybe that would get through my thick skull. I narrowed my eyes at her and tried to hear her. The staticky thoughts were back, but how could I trust them? She was thinking about the call from the Doc and the current litter of pups and how the momma dog would be real cross if she didn't get home soon. She was torn: She didn't want to upset the momma—and after seeing what the pups could do, I guess I understood—but she also didn't want to let down "the Doc," as she thought of him.

I paused and leaned back against the wall.

"Just... Just give me a minute."

It killed me to do it, and I was sure Gran was spinning in her grave—but then again, it could very well kill me not to—so I shut door in her face and left her sitting out on my porch while I wobbled to get my phone.

Two minutes later I was back and had my best Crazy Sookie smile on. I braced myself, counted to 10 and cleared my mind.

I tugged the door open, ready to invite the stranger with the weird poisonous dogs into the house, when I heard the whole mess of them growl at once.

And believe me, it's not a sound you'd forget anytime soon.

As my vision cleared the door, I put my hand to my mouth, torn between running and hiding from the sound of seven poisonous dogs growling at once, and laughing at who they were growling at.

Bobby sure did have some timing.

. .

. .

**Bobby's POV**

What the fuck. I about dropped the bitch's precious Oreo blast—and it was good too. I took one sip; hey, sue me. I was overheated.

And now I was afraid I'd give myself a little unwanted cool-down by way of pissing on myself.

One second they're all crawling on each other and napping on the porch. Then their ears pricked up, they sniffed the air, and their eyes zeroed in on me. Next thing I know, I've got seven sets of perfectly formed, razor-pointed sets of teeth bared at me.

And the growl... It was deep and full of warning, like a lion on those nature shows, right before they take down a gazelle. I wasn't gonna be a gazelle for any one of them.

I wheezed. "E-Easy there." I held my hands in front of me, trying to show them I didn't intend to hurt them. Who was I kidding? I was begging them not to hurt me.

And what'd I get for my efforts? Snarls and seven puppies on their hind legs, leaning on their crates. They made little hops that would have been cute if I didn't know they were straining to take a bite out of me. And their tails were _wagging_. Sick fucks.

"Ya dumbshit, look _down_!" barked out the lady on the porch. I spared a second to wonder who the hell this was that was even meaner than Sookie. But then I was too busy trying to save my hide. What's that they say? You can't save your ass and your face at the same time? Yup. That was me. "Ya wanna be a meal? Lookin' them in the eye just makes them think you're gonna challenge them!"

I studied the dusty gravel in front of me. Must be her big old truck I parked behind, I thought absently for no reason other than I didn't want to think about whatever kind of devils were rarin' to attack. I blinked. No. Those weren't tears in my eyes. No sir.

Without looking up, I just held the shake and the gifts up in front of me. "Just-Just take these. I'll be on my way. Just take them."

I refused to believe I was groveling but I wanted to get out of there so bad. Aunt Lettie's job offer at the local chicken processing plant was sounding better all the time.

I felt my hands lighten as the bags and the drink were taken from me. I wanted to spin on my heel and run, but then I felt a mouth at my ear.

"You just take it real slow there, buddy. You run and you'll just trigger their hunting instinct." I gulped as she patted my butt. "Now—yah! Y'all get. Ya hear?"

. .

. .

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**A/N:** I just love teasing Bobby. He's such an easy mark. So tell me what you think! Did Bobby get what he deserves? And what do you think the cuff links Sookie bought Eric look like? Let me know! Hit the button.


	28. Chapter 28: Fucking and Fairies

**A/N:** OK, this is a short one for me, but I hope you'll agree it's worth it. I had so much fun writing it and I hope you love it.

More kudos to my beta moxie mo, who encouraged me to give more life to CJ. I hope you like her. I sure as shit do. LOL.

* * *

**Disclaimer:** Charlaine Harris owns Eric and Sookie. I make them naked and give them fairy dog breeders and demon therapists.

* * *

. .

. .

**Chapter 28: Fucking and Fairies**

. .

. .

**Sookie's POV**

"Labrademon?"

I took a gulp of my Oreo blast and I looked from the soft pliable puppy in my lap to the brilliant white smile of the woman sitting across from me.

"Labrademon."

I put the cup down. I couldn't suppress a giggle and my hand flew to my mouth. First it was just a little coughed laugh but soon I was having what Gran would call a giggle fit, when anything anyone said just made me laugh harder. CJ quickly took the puppy away and tucked him into the crook of her arm expertly. When she went on about how they'd managed to breed a Cerberus-a demon dog-to a Labrador retriever, I clutched my stomach and fell face-first into the couch cushions. I held a hand out, pleading, begging for her to stop.

I sighed loud and long and laughed again, breathlessly. I managed to choke out, "You... You mean those three-headed dogs that guard the gates of hell? Those dogs?... Make that little pile of..." I couldn't even get the words out. My air whooshed out in a fit of hysterics. That's me. Lock me in a padded room. My life had finally, completely, gone off the rails.

When I calmed myself enough, I sat up and wiped the tears from my eyes. Lord, I couldn't remember the last time I had an honest to God belly laugh like that—maybe when Eric had told me about vampire kings and queens. That made me giggle again but I tried to swallow it down.

But then I thought of something and couldn't stop myself from doubling over again. "Where..." I wheezed... "Why don't they have three heads?"

CJ brought the puppy up to her face and nuzzled its soft head. It's little front paws flailed out in front of it as it tried to knead the air. Gran used to call it "making biscuits" when Tina did it. The pup flopped his head back and opened his mouth, trying to get CJ's nose in it. Yeah. That was going to be a problem.

But CJ ignored the risk. She kissed it and stroked its fat belly with her other hand and said, "Well, hell. We couldn't exactly sell dogs in this realm with three head, could we? We bred it out of 'em. Didn't we, baby?" She cooed at the dog and I was bewildered with her odd combination of grit and adoration. Add that to her blinding beauty and her down-home crassness and you had quite a combination.

But then her words sunk in and I sobered right up. "This realm? So you really are..."

"Part fae, sure as shit," she shrugged and continued to tickle the pup in her hands. "Three-fourths if you wanna be technical. Grandaddy fell for my Granny-who's human-but Daddy managed to find a full-blooded fairy to mate with and, voila! Seventy-five years ago, ya got me, all hell and damnation in a nappy." She laughed grinned at me. For the first time I noticed her ears weren't quite as rounded as mine.

That reminded me. I darted my eyes around, looking for Bonnie. I didn't think she knew anything about fairies, and I didn't want to explain it. A Were grandbaby was one thing. But I was enjoying being just another human in her eyes. At least for a little bit. I listened for her with my mind and found her out in the back by the kitchen door, talking to someone else. A man. A human man, it seemed, but he was thinking in Spanish, and I couldn't understand him.

I tried not to get too distracted. I focused back on the fairy in my house. _You're alone with a fairy,_ my brain helpfully reminded me. _For the first time. Since..._ I closed my eyes and shook my head. Nope. Nope. I refused to believe that all fairies were bloodthirsty killing machines just because the Things were. That would be like judging all humans by Rene. But try telling my body that. My heart was beating like I'd run a marathon.

"And don't you fuck with me; you are too," she said, not really a question. "I can feel the pull. You're what-quarter fairy?"

I shook my head. "An eighth."

She cocked her head and sighed softly, "Well, fuck me sideways." Then she looked back at the puppies and said, "We been breeding these little darlins for nigh on 300 years. Took a while to breed out the more unsavory of the Cerberus qualities-the hunger for live meat, the snakes for hair. That's what for we live in the middle of fuckin nowhere, too. 'Cause we didn't want none a them snake-heads gettin' out—that's what we called them 'fore we got that lil kink worked out."

She laughed as I shivered at the "live meat" part. I looked at the puppies and tried to imagine them with snake hair. I went cold.

She grinned at the puppy as it wiggled in her lap and drooled a little. Hard to believe this was the same little sweetie who'd nearly made Bobby lose control of his bladder. I reached out and carefully petted his belly too.

"And then we enhanced some of the traits of the Labrador. These little babies are big and lovable like yer usual labs. Easy to train, eager to please. They pass as being from this realm, and they're still just as energetic as your typical Labs. You'll need to take lots of walks, or at least play fetch."

She turned back to the pup and slapped his nose lightly when he tried to teeth on her.

"But fuck if we can breed the mouthiness out of these pups. Between the killer instinct of the Cerberus and the mouthiness of the Lab, we're fucked. Always gotta be bitin'. That's what for we got this ointment shit." She held out her flawless hand for my inspection. "You'd never know that I'd been a fuckin' chewtoy for these babies over the years." She shook her head and smiled at me. She seemed more relaxed now that she was talking about her dogs.

I picked a puppy up and flipped her onto her belly, her little legs flailing and the pink of her belly showing through the white fur there. I couldn't help it. I leaned down and nuzzled her belly. She had that new-puppy smell—stale milk and something sweet and powdery. I looked back up and smiled a small smile.

The puppy wiggled enough to bring his mouth near my hand and I moved it away quick as a flash. "And the teeth?"

She smiled. "Well that's one of the best parts," she said, picking up another pup from the crate and cradling it in her arms. "These little fellas have twice the strength as a normal dog, are fiercely loyal, and they can protect you from supernatural beings. They're great in water, which make them good for protection against water fae, if they're fuckin' with ya."

She gave me a pointed look and I looked away. I didn't want to think about that. "Your people ain't water fae, are they?"

My eyes widened and I shook my head, willing the tears to stay put. She grinned. "Yeah, us neither."

Then she got serious for a second and narrowed her eyes at me.

"Well, shit," she breathed. "Are you... You ain't the part-fairy what survived those fuckin killers Lochlan and Neave, are ya?"

I blinked rapidly, hoping the move would dry the tears before they fell. I looked at the puppy closely and nodded.

"Well ho-ly shit!" she bellowed, drawing out the last word into at least three syllables. She leaned forward and clapped me on the knee. Hard. This was a lady used to some rough-housing. "We got us some royalty here. You're Prince Niall's great-granddaughter! Well bless your goddamned heart! You sure as shit ain't water fae, then. No sir."

I shook my head again and tried to rise to her level of excitement. It just wasn't in me. It hurt, thinking about my great-grandfather, whom I'd never see again. Remembering the Things was no walk in the park, either.

The second slap she leveled on my knee shook me out of my brooding however.

"Well fuck me with a chainsaw," she grinned. "It's a goddang pleasure, Sookie. A mighty big honor."

Right. Because it's such a great honor to be tortured. I shook my head. I wasn't going to go there. I glanced at the clock and realized time was running short and I had an almost-full fairy in a house with a vampire who would be rising any minute.

Suddenly, you couldn't have kept the smile off my face with a crowbar.

"Ah, thanks," I said, and I could hear how off-putting my tone was, but I couldn't help it. "So Dr. Gumby thinks I need a guard dog? Is that it?" Did I need guarding? I thought the point was to get stronger on my own.

She smiled and I realized what I said. I started to explain, but she shook her head and laughed. She leaned in conspiratorially. "You know, I been calling him that in my head for decades," she smirked. "I like you, Sookie."

I smiled through the blush on my cheeks. "I think I like you too, CJ." But I was still sour at the idea of needing guarding. "So that's what this is all about: Something vicious because I'm not strong enough to protect myself from the supes around me?"

She laughed loud and long. "You sure got yourself a lot of pride, dontcha? Settle yourself down, there, missy. That ain't it. Take a look at my card."

Finally I picked up the card and read it.

_CJ Shrewsberry_

_Breeder of Super Service Dogs_

There were a whole number of breeds listed under her name, none of them "labrademon"—but I guessed that you couldn't exactly advertise that fact. I blinked and furrowed my brow. If I felt weak before, I felt like a freak now. It wasn't bad enough people thought I was disabled before—even I did—but now I had a certified medical doctor confirming it for me.

This was it. Proof I was permanently broken. I suddenly flashed to Terry and his dogs. It was the only thing that calmed him, he said. Oh Lord. Was I going to turn out like Terry after all?

"So what?" I spat out, unable to contain my irritation. "I need a service dog to..." I couldn't think of what a service dog could do for me, except maybe cuddle me when I woke up with a nightmare and Eric was gone. But I wasn't about to tell that to this stranger, no matter how much I liked her.

"Fuck, Sookie, it ain't like that," she said, standing and putting the pups back in their crate. She paced a little and stopped in front of me, like she had an idea of how to explain it. Her mind was telling me that she really wished Dr. Gumby had explained it because she hated having to explain this stuff. But she didn't think "stuff." "What about this: You ever get jumpy? Loud sounds, or unexpected sounds fuck with you? Or ya jump when someone walks in and you don't hear 'em coming?"

I didn't explain to her that unless they were a vampire, I pretty much always heard them coming. But I nodded. My nerves _were_ frayed.

I wrapped my arms tightly around myself and nodded.

"Bad dreams?"

I nodded.

She held her hands out from her sides in a sign of defeat. "Well, that's all she wrote. It ain't like the dog is gonna need to lead you around. But you feel nervous about going someplace new? We'll train your puppy to recognize the stuff that makes you feel batshit crazy and he'll warn ya. You won't get spooked no more. The less you panic, the less… what do you call it?… Adrenaline in your system, the less your nervous system is tellin' you to run like hell." She crossed her arms over her chest and shrugged. "You'll sleep better. You'll get better faster." She nodded at me, her eyes serious. "That stress shit'll kill ya."

She was ready for this conversation to be over, and she wanted to get out of here, now. She was tired and she had another stop to make before driving the two hours back home. _I didn't sign up for this shit_, is how she put it.

And when she explained it that way—that I might get better faster with the dog—I felt a little better. Still, I'd have to have a stern talk with Dr. Gumby for springing this on me. He knew how I felt about surprises.

I stopped and looked at one of the puppies, the caramel colored one. "That isn't a normal color for a Lab," I said, hoping to calm her down. I really did like her even if she would have made Gran blush from her grave.

CJ was closing up the crate and preparing to haul it back to her truck but she stopped long enough to look over her shoulder at me. "Nope. That's a Cerberus coloring. Comes through on about one in 10 of the pups. Some folks are scared of them pups 'cause they worry they got 'more of the devil in 'em,' but that's horse shit. They're sweet as all the rest of 'em."

I watched her and she really was too pretty to be human. I wondered how many of the people on People's Sexiest People Alive (Or Dead)—they'd changed it to account for all the hot vamps out there—were actually fairies.

I didn't want her to leave like this.

"I'll take him. I mean, that's the puppy I want."

She stood and put her cowboy had on. Her smile was back. "Well, shit. All right then," she nodded. She held her hand out to me to shake it. "I'll bring him back in a few days and we'll get to trainin' him. You think about what you want to name 'im."

I shook her hand and we agreed on a price. She insisted on giving me a discount because I was a "fucking princess" but other than that, we got along just fine.

We were just finishing up and I was handing her an old t-shirt so the puppy could get used to my scent when a loud, long, belly laugh sounded from the guest bedroom.

And just like that, my whole body flushed and I really wanted to get the fairy out of my house.

"OK then," I said, putting my hand on her back and pressing to get her to move toward the door. I wouldn't call it pushing, exactly.

But then I heard the door creak and I knew it was too late. Oh, this was going to be bad.

. .

. .

**Eric's POV**

My nostrils flared. My dick got hard. _Fucking fairy._ The onslaught of images from Dr. Ludwig's clinic that day overwhelmed me, constricting my chest and forcing a growl from my belly. Seeing my Sookie laying totally immobile, helpless, bruised and swollen... I will never forgive another fairy. I will never restrain myself around one again.

Before I could think I was between my Sookie and the fucking fairy—a fairy who looked like a hayseed but smelled like sex. I pressed my Sookie back against me and enjoyed feeling her arms wrap around my waist. My cock twitched when I felt her little mouth on my back.

I spared no words. I grabbed the fairy bitch by the neck and pinned her to the nearest wall. Once she was restrained, I held her eyes and pealed my lips off my fangs and hissed a long, low warning.

I closed my eyes and licked my lips. Mmm... _Fuck my Sookie_.

I vaguely registered a roar of growling coming from the floor and glanced to see several small dogs wagging their tails and snarling. I held their gaze and bared my fangs at them, too, growling louder and deeper than them. What was this? Had the fairy brought demon dogs to torment my beloved? I would rip her limb from limb and feed off her blood. I would—

"Eric Northman... Erikson... Whatever the hell your name is, you let her down this instant!"

My Sookie made a show of punching and slapping me, first from behind and then slowly, moving around to stand between myself and the fairy. Every instinct in my body wanted to get her away from the fairy—just as much as my body wanted to strip her and check her for injuries before fucking her. I barely registered the fairy launching her own attack at me. In some small part of my mind, I registered that I was in a room with two fairy females. I was the envy of every vampire right now. But I only wanted one.

I turned and grabbed Sookie's wrist as she wound up for another blow and pulled her until she landed against my side with a grunt. I wrapped my arm around her and pulled her up so I could kiss her, long and slow and deeply. She kept pushing me, but I didn't mind. It only made it more fun when her punches lost their vigor and she finally submitted to me. I growled happily.

I looked her over carefully, running my had down her back, trying to ignore the dingy shirt she was wearing.

"Are you well, dear one? Have you been harmed?"

Her eyes were glassy for a second but she shook her head. I wasn't convinced but I would do a thorough inspection shortly. I turned back to the fairy I had against the wall. Her hat had fallen and lay upturned next to her crate of mongrels.

"Fuck you, you fuckin' vamp! You and your fucking fangs ain't scared me. You let me the fuck go, you fuckin' fucker!"

I laughed and deftly dodged a kick that was aimed at.. as the human's call them... the family jewels.

"You'd do well to mind your manners and your mouth, fairy." I shook her by the neck and slammed her back against the wall so hard the nearby picture rattled. "There's a lady in the room."

"No shit, Sherlock!" she croaked out. "I'm... Fuck! I'm here to help! Tell him! Tell the damn vamp, Sookie!"

Hearing my Bonded's name coming from that fairy made my blood roar. I squeezed slightly. "You will not address her by her name. You will not address her at all. And if I find you have touched a hair on her head, I will kill you and feed you to those dogs there."

I looked her in the eyes and all she could do was blink. I trusted she understood me.

And just like that, my beautiful, brave, foolhardy woman was standing between me and the fairy again. Before thinking, I bared my fangs at her, too.

She placed her hands on my chest and shoved, barely moving me. "Hey, buddy, quit it! Dr. Gumby sent her and she's helping me." I glanced at her suspiciously. She never had been able to be glamoured and this fairy didn't seem strong enough to have that kind of magic. I loosened my fingers but didn't release her.

Sookie took her hands from me and I nearly lurched forward to get her heat back. "I swear to all that is holy, Eric Northman, that if you don't let her go, I'll release these dogs and sic them on you!"

I laughed. My Sookie was back.

And just like that, my hands were off the fairy and on my woman.

I swung her around in my arms, kissing the pulse points of her neck.

"You are well. Tell me you are well." I traced my hands over her ribcage and down to her ass. I was tempted to just lay her down on the carpet and strip her to be sure of it. I began tugging at her shirt.

Sookie slapped my hands away.

"Jesus H. Christ on a raft! I'm fine. Now you apologize to my guest."

I laughed at her but her face was stony serious. I gathered her to me again, soothed by the blood pulsing in her veins and the warmth of her body. She was standing on her own two feet and she was well enough to be intransigent.

Over my shoulder I commanded, "Leave us. And don't come back after sundown. Ever, if you want to live."

I heard the fairy mutter something under her breath, something like, "Fuckin' dick attackin' me when I'm helping his goddamn lady. No good, shit-for-brains, horny-ass mother-fuckin' vamps. Shit."

She was quickly out the door, dragging the crate of puppies with her, and I was with my woman, alone. I nuzzled into her neck and ran my fingers over every part of her I could reach—to check for injuries, to feel her close, because I could.

"Tell me you're well," I commanded gruffly.

Her hands traced the most delicious patterns down my chest, over my ribs and to my back.

"You're an asshole, Eric."

I began tugging at her shirt again, pulling it overhead. This time she allowed it. I chuckled and gazed at her. Her skin was flawless, creamy and blotched with blush. I wanted her, like this. _My Sookie. Finally, mine._

I pulled her tight to me again.

"You're late for our date, dear one," I whispered into her ear. I laughed loud and long when her legs wrapped around my waist and she rubbed herself up against me. Yet she still scowled. That's my girl.

I leaned in close and smiled at her, running my nose over her cheekbone and jaw. "You are not dressed and you smell like-" I took a deep sniff along her neck and felt myself grow harder. "-puppy breath." I growled happily. "And fairy."

Now that the fairy was gone and my Sookie was safe, I could allow myself the pleasure of what fairy does to a vampire. She let out a little squeak as I leaned her against the nearest wall—not the wall where I'd held the fairy. She closed her eyes and sighed contentedly. _Yes. My girl._

Sookie looked into my eyes shyly, but her tone was bitter. "I should be mad at you," she murmured, tracing her thumb up and down the nape of my neck, making me shiver and shake my head, my hair flying and falling around my face. I leaned over and kissed her wrist.

"But you're not," I growled. I ground into her center and loved the shiver she gave me in return.

No words. She simply leaned forward and pulled my bottom lip into her mouth, her soft, wet sucks making me even harder. And when she bowed her back against me, I groaned. I ran my palm down the center of her chest, from her clavicle to between her breasts. She was magnificent. Well. Praise the gods. I laughed and felt my Sookie shiver.

"You've got no manners," she protested and I leaned my weight into her center. "You're always trying to kill my guests."

I leaned in and nibbled her neck, teasing with my fangs. "I wasn't going to let her hurt you." She rotated her hips against me and sighed.

She pulled back and tugged my hair so I'd look at her. Reluctantly, I pulled away.

"You're gonna have to let me fight my own battles, Eric," she said sternly, frustrated. Her eyes flickered to my lips and I smiled. She was brave. My warrior. I would make her stronger still.

"I won't apologize for defending you," I said and pressed further into her. She gasped.

She shook her head and her eyes were confused. "That wasn't defense, that was bloodlust, and I won't have you doing that every time there's a supe in my house. If CJ had wanted to kill me, she could have done it two hours before you rose." I growled. I did not care for the image.

I pulled her tight against me. I would not accept that. "No."

She ran her hands over my face and tried to pull back look at me. I wouldn't let her go, to. I wasn't about to release her.

She kissed me softly and pressed her palms into my back, holding me close. Her heartbeat seeped into me. If I had need of breath, I would have sighed. As it was, I settled for growling.

"There isnt' a think we can do about it, baby," she said softly. "You can't be there all the time. I've got to fight my own battles. I've got to learn to defend myself. And you—" She placed her hand on my jaw and shook slightly. "—are going to have to stop this pitbull thing you've got going on."

She did not understand and I wasn't going to waste one more second of our night explaining the intricacies of vampire physiology to her. It is my nature to attack my enemies, especially when mine is threatened. We would discuss this later. As it was, we were on a timetable. And I needed to wipe the stench of canines off of her. It was almost as bad as Were.

I kissed her back and when she pulled away to look at me, her eyes explored every inch of my face shyly. Why she should be shy when I'm hers I'd never understand.

"I'm only going to say this once," she tugged my hair again for emphasis and I groaned and turned my head to her wrist again. "Hey, focus, buddy!"

I smirked and looked back at her. How could she expect me to listen to her half-hearted admonitions when I could smell her arousal and feel her heat? I arranged my face in a mask of curiosity.

"Don't give me that fake-interested face!" she huffed and I laughed. I stole another kiss before I leaned back and looked at her, cradling her bottom in my hand.

"Fine. I'm listening."

She rubbed her finger on the nape of my neck again and I fought the desire to take her right here up against the wall.

"There's something else, and this is very serious. As much as I hate to say it, you're going to have to start going to rest with clothes on."

She looked down between us at my bare chest and belly and my thick shaft jutting between us.

I glanced up at her and laughed, loud and long. And before she could make any more demands, I was moving towards the bedroom-the bathroom, specifically.

"Wha- Eric!" she complained.

"Relax," I cajoled, excited by the prospect of what was to come. "Normally I'd just take you against every wall in this place, but we need to get ready for our date. And I need to bathe you."

My Sookie panted and bit my neck, hard. Oh, it was going to be a good night.

. .

. .

**A/N:** So in real life, they do train service dogs to help returning vets deal with PTSD. I first heard about it last year on a really interesting episode of NPR's Fresh Air. Here's a link in case you're interested in learning more: http:/www (dot) npr (dot) org / templates / story / story (dot) php?storyId=111806582

So whatta you think? Like CJ or hate her? I love protective/horny Eric. And don't you think that there should be a naked Eric in every chapter, even if there can't be naked Eric on every episode of True Blood? Comment and let me know!


	29. Chapter 29: Cherish

**A/N:** Well, here we are again. Thanks so much for all the awesome reviews for the last two chapters. I'm not great at responding to all of them, but you all have some great ideas for dates and had a lot to say about CJ. I'm sorry a few of you don't like her, but I don't think she'll be around much. She just needs to train the fido. I wonder what she'll name him…

So this is the start of the date. I hope you love it. This chapter is totally and completely dedicated to my awesome beta moxie mo, who took my kernel of an idea and jumped in with a bunch of stuff I'd never have thought of on my own. I hope you love it. This is the first of what I expect will be three chapters on their date (it's a very busy one, don't you know), so you'll get a lot of Eric before we go back to the daytime, non-Eric hours.

I know some of you don't like original characters, but this one is definitely a one-time thing. I just couldn't resist. Have fun and I'll see you at the bottom.

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**Disclaimer:** Not mine.

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**In the last Healing Blood:**

_"There's something else, and this is very serious. As much as I hate to say it, you're going to have to start going to rest with clothes on."_

_She looked down between us at my bare chest and belly and my thick shaft jutting between us._

_I glanced up at her and laughed, loud and long. And before she could make any more demands, I was moving towards the bedroom—the bathroom, specifically._

_"Wha- Eric!" she complained._

_"Relax," I cajoled, excited by the prospect of what was to come. "Normally I'd just take you against every wall in this place, but we need to get ready for our date. And I need to bathe you."_

_My Sookie panted and bit my neck, hard. Oh, it was going to be a good night._

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_**Chapter 29: Cherish**_

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**Eric's POV**

Before we even reached the bedroom, she was squirming against me like a three year old begging to be let down.

"Eric, God," she complained, pulling my hair and making me growl. Perhaps I could cancel our plans. Perhaps I should just lean her against the wall and take her. Thursday isn't a traditional date night, after all. "You're so high-handed."

I laughed and ghosted my fingers down her side, enjoying how the movement made her squirm against me.

"Eric," she whimpered and I felt her tense. Her internal battle between what she wanted and what she thought was right was so amusing. Especially when I won.

I stopped and pressed her against the wall separating her bedroom from her bathroom. I leaned my full weight into her and dipped my head to kiss her, feeling her mouth respond and her body freeze. Her heat surrounded me, warmed me as if I were up against a fire on a cold night. Gods, this woman. I ground into her and swung her bathroom door open, flicking on the light. It spread out around us, the only light in the room.

I leaned back and Sookie lifted her head to follow me, nipping my lip. I growled and pushed her back with a palm on her chest.

"I am high-handed, as you love to point out," I said, eyeing her pointedly, allowing my gaze to rake over her. "But I'm still full of bloodlust and I can't take the chance that you'll run off. My hunting instinct is still keen."

I watched the blood race in the delicate blue veins of her neck and the heavy swallow of her throat. Her cheeks pinked. I grew harder still, remembering the short chase last night.

"Or maybe you'd prefer a chase, hmm?" I whispered, leaning into her, licking her jugular. It felt so right, smelled so good to be surrounded by the scent of her hair and skin, even tainted as it was by dogs and fairy. I was going to have to make the demon bleed for inviting a fairy over to my beloved's house after what she'd been through. My eyes scanned her one more time and I tightened my arms around her, ensuring she wasn't going anywhere. "I think you like being caught."

She didn't speak, just gasped and clutched her hand tighter in my hair. I shook my head in pleasure, enjoying how she was attempting to hold me to her.

And I had caught her. She was mine. Finally, finally mine. I smiled against her flesh. Fairies were so hard to catch-my Sookie no less so because only a few drops of fairy circulated in her veins. I wrapped my arms around her tighter and growled against her.

I felt her laugh breathily against me and I loved the sound, closing my eyes and committing it to memory. I licked up the column of her neck and ran my hands along her legs, still wrapped around me.

Finally I pulled back and looked at her. Her eyes were unfocused and glassy, and she was smiling almost unwittingly, it seemed to me. Surely she had never allowed herself to appear this contented in my presence before. Perhaps the one time she had visited Fangtasia with no agenda but to spend time with me. And for a moment I was sure the bond had sparked back to life because I sensed the same contentment in my own blood, calming me even as I felt stronger than I'd felt in decades.

"My Sookie," I whispered, just for the pleasure of hearing it. "Let me bathe you."

I held her against me and shifted her weight from the wall and into my arms and just like that, I had reached into the shower and turned on the water.

Sookie coughed and pulled back, feigning indignation. She rolled her eyes and muttered, "We're not done talking about this Eric."

I chuckled. "So now you want to talk, Sookie. Have you noticed you only want to talk when you're irritated? Never when you feel love?"

Sookie screwed her face up in a scowl. Gods, I love her.

. .

. .

When we were both naked and my hands had thoroughly explored all her bare skin for injury, I stepped us into the water, unwilling to lose contact with her for a moment.

She unwrapped her legs from around me and my body protested the loss of her touch. I had just turned her under the spray when she put her palms on me and croaked, "Wait!" Her small hand shot past me and out the shower curtain. She leaned past me and I didn't move, enjoying her reach and how it forced her to press herself to me further. She huffed in irritation and shoved at me. I laughed. When she straightened, she glared at my unrepentant smirk and twisted her hair into a little knot on top of her head.

"I just washed it and I don't want to dry it all over again," she glared at me and stabbed her little pointer finger into me. "Don't get it wet."

I laughed again and lowered my head to her neck, her ear, her jaw, her mouth. Finally I settled back at her ear and whispered, "You're bossy tonight. I like it."

I nipped at her ear and swung the shower head so her shoulders captured the spray and a golden bubble of laughter rippled from her. It made me want to match it with my own, so I did. I thought back to the night I'd found her here a week and a half ago. Then, it seemed like her wailing was the only sound she was capable of making. It was burned into me, seared into my flesh as surely as any silver blade. But her laughter was a salve. My hands roamed over her slippery body as hers held my hips, digging in and pulling me closer to her.

_Ah my Sookie_. "I love you," I whispered in her ear. "My love."

She sighed and buried her face into my pecs. Her fingers traced around my hips to my bottom, scraping her nails across my cheeks. I pressed myself against her and turned her until her back was flat against the cool, slick tiles. I growled low in my chest, contentedly and continuously, and pressed myself flush against her. I pulled back and looked at her face. As I did, she opened her eyes. Her lashes were beaded with dew and she blinked it away. Her cheeks were blotched and her chest was red. Her soft, cool breasts pressed into my chest.

For a moment she just watched me and I couldn't help but remember back to that first shower in this house, the shower that started it all, though I did not have enough of a mind to know that then. I moved my hand to her neck, my fingers tracing under her nape and my thumb flickering along her chin and lower lip. She was studying me, unhurried and her hands moved languorously along the thick, butterflied muscles of my back. I shook my head back and relished her gaze, her adoration. Her eyes on me were like little licks of her tongue.

I relished how she clung to me, shyly.

"Love you," she whispered, her eyes dropping from mine and her face returned to that spot on my chest.

"This is right," I muttered, feeling her lips and eyelashes on my chest. I leaned in and kissed her hair.

The smell of her arousal mixed with the steam was intoxicating and my growl grew louder.

"I love when you do that," she said softly, running her hands along my chest and my shoulders, leaving currents in her wake. She bent her head back against the shower wall, a small grin on her face, her eyes sparking.

"Do what, lover?" I asked as I reached for the soap and lathered it up in my hands. I began working it over her shoulders and neck, massaging her thoroughly as I went.

Like a minx, she looked up at me through her lashes and bit her lip. Her two little feet were between my two larger one and I was effectively shielding her from most of the water. She kissed my chest where it rumbled and said, "Purr. I love it when you purr."

She grinned up at me and I could see she meant it genuinely. Her voice was a little surprised and shy. "You're like my very own giant kitty cat."

The smile dropped from my face and I felt my chest constrict with rage. My brows descended over my eyes. That fucking weretiger. Had he shared a shower with her? Had he purred at her? The image of her stepping past me and into his arms flashed against my eyelids and I pressed her back into the tile with my body because I couldn't find the tiger to kill him.

"I don't purr." That overgrown pussycat purrs. Her snarling half-breed of a werepanther brother might purr. "I am vampire. Vampires do not purr."

Predictably, Sookie grinned and rolled her eyes. I lathered my hands again, and began carefully scrubbing her arms of the scent of those dogs and that fairy. When I got to her fingers I washed each individually, running them under the spray and then sucking each of them to be sure she was free of that stench.

I kissed the pulse point of her wrist and wanted to bite her, wanted to mark her, wanted to drag that pathetic tiger into this house and force him to watch her as I made her tense and release in pleasure over and over again, leaving my scent and my sex all over her.

"So what do you call that sound you're making there?" she asked, tracing her finger down my vibrating chest. Between the bloodlust and the fairy scent still lingering on her and the protective instinct sparked by the image of Quinn with my Sookie, she was lucky she was still upright and unmolested.

Keeping a tight grip on my impulses, I picked up her other arm lightly and began washing it, massaging the thin ropes of muscles there. I shrugged and looked down at the water drifting over her breasts and dripping off her stiff nipples. "Growling."

She shook her head and laughed, a throaty, wanton sound that strained my control. "Sure," she scoffed. I went right on washing, swallowing down the saliva that was pooling in my mouth.

"Wait!" she said, twining her fingers with mine, soapy and pressed against my chest. "Are you... You're not jealous are you?"

And just like that, a peal of laughter exploded from her mouth and her eyes widened in sly amusement. I pulled her arm up and kept washing, trying to get rid of the fairy scent before I fucked her where she stood.

"Well I'll be!" she said, in an exaggeration of her own accent. "Big, bad Eric Northman, sheriff of Area 5, is jealous of a weretiger who hasn't been here in months!"

With that, she seemed to lose herself in amusement. And with every decibel her laughter grew, so did my growl. She was... My Sookie was... laughing at me.

And I knew just how to silence her.

I leaned in to her newly cleaned skin sucked and licked her jugular, causing her laughter to choke in her throat.

Oh, she was going to pay.

I pressed my fangs against her wet, throbbing skin. "Do these feel like the teeth of a cat?"

She wheezed out a laugh. I brought my hand to the other side of her neck and massaged the two little puncture holes that were nearly healed from last night. She shivered against me.

"N... No," she breathed.

I lowered my head further to her shoulder and bit lightly, drawing just two drops of blood and a gasp from my Sookie. The scent of her arousal bloomed and opened in the heat of the shower. I licked the twin drops up and lowered myself to my knees.

I reached to the dish and soaped my hands, creating a froth of bubbles.

"Eric," she whispered and the look in her eyes was suddenly dark with hunger. For me. My Sookie wanted me. I grinned and my growl—not purr—went back to a dull roar of retribution. She wasn't going to get off so easily. Not at all. I raised her arms and washed under each of them, nuzzling my face into the vein there, inhaling her earthy, floral skin, and the promise of her blood underneath. "Perfect," I whispered. Her scent all around me sent chills through me. My stomach clenched in desire.

I moved on and resoaped my hands to lave her belly, studiously avoiding her full and straining breasts, moving in rhythm with her panting, and gleaming in the light. I glanced up at her and remembered how this technique had worked so well that first night. It seemed to be having the same effect now. Sookie wound her fingers into my hair. My fingers worked over her ribs and she writhed, laughing in short pants. She brought her thighs close and I could see that she wished for something more.

"And I suppose this is how a cat would wash you?"

I watched as the spray pushed the soap bubbles lower, tangling in her dark blond curls and coasting along her wet thighs. I wanted to bury myself there, take up residence in her center and breathe her scent until it was all I knew. I wanted to wrap her thighs around my shoulders and have an early meal of pussy and blood.

She laughed and it came out high, distracted. "No... No," she said, and I could feel in her squirming that her whole body was alight with sensitivity. It wouldn't take much now. I restrained my movements and began soaping her back, massaging her shoulder blades and giving attention to each disc of her spine. And then a giggle bubbled up again. "A cat would give me a tongue bath."

She rotated her hips suggestively and I growled louder. Then she parted her legs and shifted her hips forward until her curls were at my chest. I growled and fought back the shudder that threatened to force me into her more. She wouldn't win so easily. Besides, she was beautiful when she was worked up, wanting.

"That can be arranged," I said, licking up her stomach from her belly button to just south of her breasts. When I pulled away, my Sookie groaned in frustration.

I rubbed my face against her belly and shook my head there, enjoying the feel of her warm flesh and the hot water pouring over me.

It was her turn to growl. I turned her and bent her toward me, positioning her so that all the soap drifted from her back. I placed a hand on her hair, making sure it didn't get wet. The pose brought her breast to me and I gratefully opened my mouth and hesitated there, just holding the flat of my tongue on her nipple.

A loud, deep groan ripped from Sookie's throat and she started moving her nipple in soft, loose circles against my tongue. As much as I wanted to close my mouth around those perfect pink nipples, I didn't—I only teased her, forced her to shove her breast into my mouth, even as I pulled back, taunting her. I did my best to avoid thinking about how my cock twitched each time I felt the fullness of her breast against my face.

"Is this the tongue of a cat?" I finally asked as I pulled back, smirking up at her pouting, unfocused face. I bent my leg to make a seat for her and lowered her pulsing, swollen sex to my thigh. We both gasped at the contact. I had the impulse to pull her close and smother myself in her magnificent breasts, and why restrain myself? I did it and was grateful for freedom from the need to breathe. In an instant, Sookie was curling her hips against me and moaning into my neck. Her arms flew around my neck.

So alive. Whole. I watched her healed body move and felt a broadening of my chest, as if my ribs would crack. Her body is whole and healed because of me. My blood. She is well because of me. I have protected her. I have given her what she needed and she has given me... She has given me everything.

I pressed my face into her breastbone, just above her heart, and stilled her hips. She whimpered in a way that told me she was close.

"Hmmm, Sookie?" I growled. She sucked in breath erratically and dug her nails into my shoulders, no doubt in punishment. "Answer me. Look at me."

Her eyes shot to me.

"You're a bastard," she muttered. "I chose you and now you're being mean. I bet Qu—

But I didn't let her finish. I leaned forward and kissed her hard, pouring into her all the strength and love and gratitude I had for her safety during my daytime death.

Sookie gave as good as she got, pulling herself flush against me and grinding herself against the junction of my hip, wrapping one leg around me. But I held her hips still and she groaned. With my other hand, I lifted her leg and ran the soap along it, covering every shapely inch of her with lather. Down to her toes and back again to her inner thighs, stopping when I was just shy of her wet and straining center.

"Hmm, Sookie?" I whispered into her neck as I switched hands and lathered the other leg. "Is this the raspy, prickly tongue of that cat? Tell me. Am I a cat? Hmm?" _Tell me. Tell me I'm better than that mangy cat._

She grunted against me and dug the nails of one hand into my shoulder and reached the other hand down between my legs, stroking me against her soapy thigh. I growled loudly. "Mmm, fuck, my Sookie."

Quietly I heard her mutter into my ear, "My Eric." The words and her fluttering, stroking, twisting hand made me want to forget my need for retribution, my claim, forget who was coming to the house, forget about her hair and my plans and her remark about the purring and lay her down and fuck her in the belly of the tub just for the pleasure of it.

I squeezed my eyes shut for a moment and sucked the flesh of her neck into my mouth. She sobbed against me. "No... No... Not a cat... Baby..." She began trying to move her hips again. "I need... Please."

I felt the smile spread across my face and my chest grew broader still. I abruptly stood. Sookie groaned in frustration.

"That's right," I crowed, grinning and nuzzling her neck. "There's only one pussy in this shower and she's going to have to wait."

With that, I turned her toward the spray and rinsed the remaining soap off her. In a moment, I had the water off, had rubbed her skin with a fluffy white towel and was laying her on her bed naked.

"Wha—Eric!" Sookie said, propping herself up on her elbows and staring stakes at me. "Why... I mean, you come back here and finish what you started!"

I laughed and zipped back to her, a tube of her favorite lotion in my hand. I looked her over, pink from the shower and my ministrations, her nipples taut, her slightly splayed legs showing me the swollen evidence of her desire. She smelled so good I wanted to smother her in me, layer my scent on top of her own. Instead, I started at her feet, taking each in hand and slowly massaging lotion into them.

I worked my way up her body meticulously, raising one leg, then the other, enjoying how her head snapped back when I massaged the lotion into her inner thighs in long, slow swipes of my palms.

"Oh, God, Eric, please!" she grunted and bucked her hips forward. I relented just for a second, lowering my head and kissing the wet, puffy folds of her perfect pussy.

"Healed," I muttered to myself, full of pride. She groaned in delight and attempted to rub herself into me. "Magnificent."

Then she snapped her head back to look at me, as I started applying lotion to her hips and belly using my fingers in tight circles. Her angry eyes locked with my sly ones in a silent battle. I never dropped her gaze, even as I worked up her body, from soft, rounded hips to belly to ribs and then the soft undersides of her breasts. She watched me, commanding with her eyes, her lip caught between her teeth in a feral smile. I growled, imagining what a magnificent vampire she would be. She propped her thighs on my hips and attempted to tug me forward.

Her gaze flickered from my hands to my straining cock and back again. She groaned through her lower lip, little puffs of air coming out around her captured lip. She bucked her hips against my cock and I grunted against her, finally laying across her, my lotion-slick hands massaging her breasts in wide, kneading circles, avoiding her nipples.

A sweat broke out across her chest and I leaned down to lick it up. I growled happily. "Gorgeous."

"You're being mean," she warned, and I laughed softly, wondering what the warning was for, what fire she would unleash on me.

But in that instant, I pressed lotion into her nipples and pulled lightly and Sookie's back bowed in a pose worthy of sculpture. "Gahhhhhh!" she grunted and bore down on me, her eyes never leaving mine, warning warring with lust in her eyes. I growled back, knowing that somewhere beneath her irritation was love.

I had moved on to her shoulders and arms, leaning over her, straddling her belly, when the doorbell sounded. I chuckled and pulled her palm to my mouth. She pressed it against me, her head pressed back into the pillows, her hair sexy and disheveled. I wanted to remember her like this forever and again cursed her refusal to allow me to take a photo of her.

"And that will be our entertainment," I growled looking at her through slitted eyes. I could imagine thousands of nights like this one, thousands of opportunities to cradle and tease and arouse her body, thousands of opportunities to keep her warm, beating heart close to mine.

I pushed myself back from her with effort, as if she were my own personal planet and let my eyes linger on her as I backed away toward the door. If she would allow it, I would take a picture of her like this, a bowstring pulled tight, eyes darkened, utterly open to me in every way.

My Sookie.

With one last look I turned, determined to open myself to her once again.

. .

. .

**Sookie's POV**

"You're lucky I love you," I yelled after him and then promptly flopped back against the bedsheets, more agitated than a cat with his tail on fire.

Cat. Ha! Who would have thought Eric—swaggering, incorrigible Eric—would feel threatened by _Quinn_—

"Don't I know it, lover!" he called back as his voice drifted closer to the front of the house. I could sense that there was the void of a vampire brain and a very active human brain waiting on my front steps. I couldn't tell you what the vampire was thinking—obviously—but the human was thinking in a mix of Spanish and English and was sure smitten with his vamp. Aw. It was kind of sweet.

And it made me think of my big tease of a vampire.

My... Oh my God. I curled to my side, burying my face in the pillows that stilled smelled like Eric. My Eric. It was going to take a long time to get used to that. I groaned and felt my heart throbbing under every inch of my skin. Lord. Everything about me was sensitive. I ran a hand down my stomach and it felt so soft from the lotion.

I thought back to that first shower with Eric, when I felt like if he didn't touch me I would just die, and if he did, I might spontaneously combust. Yep. Eric sure hadn't lost it.

And damned if a small hole opened in my chest as Eric's cool weight had disappeared from my body. It was true, I realized suddenly. I wanted to be caught. For all the running I'd done, I liked being caught, at least by Eric, at least right now. And I'd be content to stay in his arms for a while. My emotions must be all out of whack because I had to stop myself from tearing up at that moment. Let's just leave it at that.

I lay there listening to Eric move about my house, wondering if he'd bothered to put a towel around his hips or if he was giving yet more people a free show. I swear. That vampire missed his calling. He should have been a stripper.

I let my eyes flutter closed as my arm, soft from all that lotion, splayed across my eyes. I laughed and it sent tingles through my whole body. I'd have to get him back for all that teasing. But I couldn't think of that right now because suddenly images of Eric on a stage, in an honest-to-God sheriff's uniform, complete with chaps and gun holster and boots with spurs and a leather fringed vest—and nothing else—started playing on my eyelids. Hmmm. I wondered if I could get him to dress up like that for me. He was fond of costumes. I rubbed my legs together and bit my lip.

My legs stilled. It wasn't enough. Now that I'd had Eric, it was never enough. What was becoming of me? I remembered Bill throwing me up against the wall in the hotel in Dallas and tearing my panties off, and Eric coming in later and fingering the torn lace. The look he'd given me then was so like the one he'd given me in the shower tonight, that look of promise and menace all wrapped up in a big Eric-sized package. A stab of pure liquid pleasure shot through me and I groaned.

It was going to be a long night.

I heaved a big sigh and resigned myself to getting up. I moved about the room, pulling out a silky pair of black lace panties from the drawer and wiggling into them, and then propping up the girls in my black strapless bra.

I went into the bathroom to put on my makeup and assess the damage to my hair. And stopped short at the door frame.

Crap. Frizzy. Damp. A regular bird's next. So much for not re-drying it. I grunted and my whole body throbbed smelling the moist scent of my soap lingering in the air. No time for that now. I pulled out the blow dryer and shook my head at my reflection. Eric was always messing with my plans. But if I were honest, I'd have to admit that I wouldn't want my plans if I couldn't have Eric. Not right now, anyway. Oh Lord. Just the thought tensed my muscles to bolt again. Then I smiled at the blush that crept up my neck to my cheeks. _I think you like being caught._ Mechanically, I held up the blow dryer and started on the first section of my hair.

. .

. .

A half an hour later, I finally walked down the hall toward the living room, my hips swaying as my heels click-clacked on the new floor.

"And this... This is my Sookie."

Eric turned to me and smiled and—

_Whoa_. Normally Eric is a jeans-and-t-shirt kind of guy, but boy, does he clean up good. He was wearing a pair of trousers and... Well, let's just say the man could wear a pair of pants. They were black and stretched tight over his rear and draped elegantly to his shiny, polished dress shoes. His shirt was inky black, too, and closely cut to show off his broad shoulders and deliciously muscled chest. Of course, he had the first two buttons undone just enough for some dark blond hairs to poke out and make me want to lick him right in that spot. The buttons were mother-of-pearl and I glanced down at his wrists as he pulled me to his side. French cuffs. Yay.

And breaking up the long line of Eric's body was a giant, ostentatious bronze-tone belt buckle with little chains dangling off of it. Of course there was. I had to love him for it though. My heart fluttered and my skin, which had calmed after a half hour in front of the mirror, reignited with heat.

Eric leaned in and kissed my cheek and then my neck and I couldn't help but shiver. Lord, what this man does to me. What could I do? I closed my eyes and leaned into him.

"You wore your hair up," he whispered in a rush of air that raised goosebumps on my neck. "You honor me."

I shook my head to myself because I knew better than to roll my eyes at Eric in front of another vampire. The truth was, I wore it up because after washing it and drying it and curling it—and then having to dry it all over again, I wasn't up for a big to-do. So I dried it and piled it on top of my head, only using the curling iron to add a little body to the pieces I'd left down around my face. I squeezed his hand and kissed him back, pulling him down a little further. I felt the irritation lift right out of me. He looked so good and he was gazing at me with a whole boatload of adoration in his eyes. And how can you be mad at that?

"... 'welcome," I muttered against his lips and turned my attention to the human-vamp duo in front of me.

The vamp was tall and thin, and his head seemed too big for his body. His eyes were intense and dark and a heavy brow laid over them. His broad, pronounced cheekbones spread his face open and he had the most lovely mouth with two little fangs poking out from his bottom lip. His thick, coarse hair was brushed back from a widow's peak and of all odd things, he was wearing a little red bow tie with his slightly rumpled linen suit.

The human next to him had dark, curly hair that flopped over his light brown eyes and a wide succulent mouth. The human looked like he was maybe 10 years older than me but you never could tell with humans who hung out with vamps. Both their skin was olive—well, the vamp's skin would have been olive if he were alive.

I dropped my gaze because the vamp was inching toward me with flared nostrils. I just knew that he was smelling CJ here earlier today and mentally kicked myself for letting a fairy in my house when I was going to have vamps around. Not that I knew at first she was a fairy, of course. And not that I'd planned it. And not that I knew there'd be some strange vampire in my house tonight. I started getting irritated and I didn't know why. To cover, I pulled away from Eric and pressed my arms across my chest. But the tall, dark hair vamp with the big eyebrows surprised me. He smiled broadly and stepped forward, bowing deeply and cradled my hand in both of his. He pressed a cool kiss to the back of my hand and I couldn't help it, my heart skipped a beat.

Dammit. And I knew both vampires heard it. Eric's growl got louder and the vampire with my hand leaned up slightly from my hand, his fangs peaking out a little more from his full lips.

"Ah," the vamp started, eyes flashing as I felt Eric's arms wrap around me again. I pressed myself back into him but kept myself rigid, eyeing the vamp. "The golden girl/bathed in the water/and the water turned gold."

Um... Oooookay.

As I watched his dark head linger over my hand, I had to admit that his accent sure was nice—throaty and melodic and I wanted to close my eyes and hand him the phone book to read to me. Instead I took my hand back and wrapped it around Eric's forearm.

I smiled at him slightly and did a weird curtsy thing because I didn't know what else to do when a vampire kissed your hand and recited poetry to you.

He smiled more fully, chuckled quietly and stood to his full height. "It is a pleasure. I am Federico Garthia Lorca," he said, bowing deep again.

The name rang a bell but I couldn't place it.

Finally the vamp stepped back and turned to the human man next to him who was smiling to beat the band. The vamp pulled the human close by the hand and gazed into his eyes. He brought the human's hand to his mouth and just when I thought he was going to pull the same routine on the guy's hand, Mr. Garthia Lorca turned the man's wrist and brushed his lips against his pulse, holding eye contact the whole time.

Kind of like Eric had done earlier. Huh.

"And this is my mate, Fernando Antonio Path de Lucena." He dropped the man's hand, and it landed on Mr. Garthia Lorca's chest, where his heart would beat if it were still alive. The men held their gaze for a long moment, small smiles on their lips.

I shifted uncomfortably on my heels. This really seemed like a moment they should be having privately. Eric threaded his fingers with mine and pulled me close, nuzzling my neck. I couldn't help it. I started to relax and that throbbing started up under my skin. Again.

Finally the human man turned to me and I could see he was blushing. He held out his hand to me and said, "Nando. Everyone calls me Nando." He rolled his eyes and leaned a little closer, whispering, "Federico is just a little dramatic."

I shook his hand and smiled. I knew just what he meant. But then I felt shy. The look he gave me made me feel funny, like he could really see me. His eyes flickered from me to Eric and back again. He dropped my hand and I dropped my chin, looking at the floor in front of the couch.

The two men began moving toward the lit fireplace to set up, bickering with each other. I heard Mr. Garthia Lorca say with an amused flourish, "Of course I'm dramatic! I am a poet!"

Nando chuckled and I watched his long curls wave as he shook his head. "... And a vampire. Don't forget that."

Mr. Garthia Lorca pulled the man close and whispered something in his ear. When he released his honey, the man chuckled breathily, shaking his head and setting about opening his guitar case.

I turned in Eric's arms and wrapped my arms around his waist, nestling my face in between his pecs.

"So what, did you have a secret life as a vampire poet or something?"

Eric laughed loud and I let the joy of it wash over me. I felt his mouth by my ear and sue me-I shivered.

"Oh no, dear one, but Federico Garcia Lorca is a vampire treasure. He's the equivalent of what you humans call your poet laureates. He speaks to the vampire soul unlike any other."

"And I did even when I was human," chuckled the vampire from over by the lit fireplace. Stupid vampire hearing. I almost laughed at the dramatic bow he made, but then my eyes were caught. "Eric, is that a fur on my floor?"

My skin tingled and I flushed, imagining what we could do on that fur, what it would feel like on my back. Or knees.

Eric purred against my ear—I don't care what his macho vampire pride says—and unwound me from him and led us down the hall. His hand stayed firmly on my lower hip and his fingers circled, shooting sparks around my body.

I blinked when we got close to the kitchen. I had questions. I started with the simplest.

"I thought he said his name was Garthia. You said Garcia. Which is it?" I tried to whisper, hoping as we inched away, the vampire wouldn't think I was being rude asking after him behind his back.

Eric chuckled as he led me into the kitchen where I was surprised to find silver-tone chafing dishes with little sterno pots underneath, keeping whatever was in them warm. I'd seen these plenty when I'd bar-tended for Sam at some fancy shindig where they hired us out along with a caterer. I started lifting the lids and sticking my face in them, smelling the delicious scents. But I didn't recognize the food. One of them just seemed to have mushrooms in them, which seemed weird to me. Another warmed olives. I plucked one out and stuck it in my mouth. It had some herbs on it. It was really good and I groaned in pleasure.

Eric was immediately behind my, pressed into my back and my whole body responded to him. I swallowed hard.

"It is to your liking, dear one?" He said, ghosting a finger down my neck. I laughed at the tingles that shot down my spine and wiggled away from his grasp. It was either that or shove him against the counter and climb him. I nodded and moved on to the next dish and Eric was right behind me again. His lips landed on my shoulder and I thought of earlier, when he was teasing me about the purring thing. But damned if the purr weren't back. I smiled and lifted the next lid but replaced it immediately. The briny smell and glossy black of mollusks hit me. I coughed and replaced the lid right away.

"Well, maybe not that one," I choked out and shook my head, moving on quick. Lifting the lid next to it, the soothing scents of potatoes and onions and tomatoes hit me and my stomach gurgled happily. Huh. I guess I hadn't eaten in hours... All that teasing had worked up an appetite.

"It's both-Garcia," Eric said, still pressed into me, leaning over to see past my shoulder into the dishes, and I marveled at his comfort with human food. "It's spelled like you would spell Garcia. But he's Spanish, and in Spain, that's how they pronounce their 'c's."

"So what? You lived in Spain with him? You saw him recite his poetry?" I turned to him and smirked. "Are you a fanboy, Eric Northman?"

Eric chuckled and picked up a potato and pepper from the pan and fed it to me. It was delicious. I hummed happily. "Good," I muttered and put the lid back on that one.

"Not at all, lover. I lived in Spain 400 years before Lorca began his human life. But he did live in the same region I did, and his poetry does bring back some good memories. I didn't discover Lorca until I was already here and living at Sophie-Ann's court and he arranged a production of his play, 'Blood Wedding,'" he said, and I tried not to be grossed out by the image I got of Carrie with blood poured all over her. I suddenly wondered if horror movies were porn for vamps. Please don't let Eric make me watch those.

Unaware of my wandering thoughts, Eric was on a tear about his favorite poet. "It's good, the play. His poems are full of the glories of the night and blood and death. As you can imagine, he'd built up quite a vampire following in his human life, so much so that he was taken as a lover by a prominent vampire. When it became clear that the fascists would execute him for his sexuality, his lover laid in wait and slaughtered his would-be executioners and then turned him."

My mood darkened at the thought of execution, and remembered with sickening clarity Crystal's body strung up on that makeshift cross in Merlotte's employees lot. I shook my head and took a deep breath of the smell of the yummy food in front of me and the feel of Eric's body pressed against me. He moved a hand to my belly and pulled me back to him, and my butt hit right up against that silly belt buckle of his.

Eric dug his fingers into the next pan, which had some puff pastry and sausage in it and fed it to me, his finger lingering in my mouth, allowing me to lick the grease from them. The sausage was spicy and when I started sucking Eric's fingers, he groaned and his other hand tightened on my stomach. I was too worked up for this and ground myself back against him. A surge of power shot through me when Eric groaned and thrust his fingers into my mouth. I shoved thoughts of all the people who'd died around me aside as my temperature rose and I pressed back into Eric.

"His maker and lover spread the story that his execution had succeeded, of course, and his body had been dumped in a mass grave, but it was never found. For obvious reasons." He fed me from another dish with figs and carmelized onions and cheese and almonds and I grunted in pleasure, unable to think about what he was saying to me. "Good?"

I nodded and kissed his hand. I turned to him. "Amazing. Is this Spanish food? I like it."

Eric smiled softly and nodded, brushing at the few tendrils that were sweeping my shoulders. "I told Bobby the date was a Spanish theme and he arranged all of this." Eric gestured around him but his gaze never left me. He swept his eyes over me and I felt naked, my lady parts shuddering in anticipation. Suddenly, I couldn't think of the vampire in the other room, or his lover or anything else. My world shrunk to Eric's eyes and his hands and I found my chest hurting from lack of air. His gaze grew serious and drifted to my lips. He rubbed his thumb over my lower lip. "For you, my lover, I would slaughter rows of executioners."

And then the world crashed in around me. My senses seemed to blow out around me, compulsively tracking every mind signature I could chase. My breath caught in my throat and my eyes dropped to his chin. My legs felt like they might wobble right out from under me. I tried not to think about it, I really did. _He would have killed my own fairy executioners. _I knew he would have, and he sounded like he did his level best to kill every other fairy he'd come across that night. But of course he didn't kill mine. That fell to Bill. I took a deep breath. No. No. I was not going to fall into the pity pot. Not now. Not when I'd had a good day. I felt the sweat on my brow and shook my head, breathing deep to try to slow my racing heart.

I sucked in a breath and concentrated on relaxing my muscles, pushing aside the anger that was bubbling up. I raised my eyes to Eric's and purposefully rose to my tippy-toes and planted a kiss, right on his lips.

Eric purred in response, leaning over me and nuzzling into my neck. "I _was_ there," he started, and he almost sounded like he was justifying himself and I didn't want to think about that. It made me feel... unsettled. And I was already shaken. "I healed you."

I nodded and pressed Eric's head into my shoulder and wrapped my arms around him tightly. I squeezed my eyes shut and forced the image of that terrible Thing from my mind, and Bill standing behind him like some avenging angel. I did the same disappearing act with the echoes of my prayers for Eric to save me, but it didn't stop me from shaking a little. I concentrated on his strong hard body, his arms wrapped around me tightly. _He's here now,_ I reminded myself. _You're here now. You're safe. He loves you. You're safe._ I wanted to believe him. So I would. I would make it happen, fears be damned.

I nodded against his head and pulled him back so I could look at him. I blinked a few times to clear the tears and nodded again, serious. I held his head in my hand and he seemed so vulnerable standing there in my kitchen with me, angering me for no good reason. So much like... "My Eric," I whispered, as my lips brushed over his. And then, because there was no helping it, "I love you."

My limbs felt disconnected and I felt far away, remembering the meditation and Gran and the little gift she'd given me. I closed my eyes, trying to return to the here and now. Trying to climb out of the pit.

Eric tilted my chin up and waited till I opened my eyes. He was waiting a while, I'll tell you. When I finally did, his eyes were sharp, almost angry—or maybe that was me—but he took the opportunity to dip his head and kiss me slowly and with banked passion and serious, serious intention. This was no booty-call kiss. This was... My breath caught. This was the kiss of a man totally and completely in love. He held me to him delicately, just his fingertips brushing my back and the nape of my neck.

"Your word for the day was _cherish_," he said out of nowhere when he pulled back.

I guessed I was going through shock because I started shaking.

I folded my arms to my chest and leaned into him. Eric's purring got louder and he held me, not asking, and for that, I could kiss him and have a dozen of his little vampire babies.

Finally I took a deep, steady breath and pulled back. Eric looked as naked before me as he ever had, his eyes fathomlessly old but his smile that of a boy's. I ran my fingertips over his face. I'd never tire of that contradiction. I hoped I wouldn't. I hoped with every ounce of Christian faith left in me that I'd get to see it for a long while.

"My Sookie," he whispered, his eyes capturing every little thing about me. He might as well have pulled the little bows on my shoulders and stripped me of my bra and panties for how I felt at that moment. The backs of his fingers traced my neck and down over my breastbone to the top of my dress, followed by his eyes. "I have a gift for you."

I grinned. I wanted to tell him I knew, that I saw it while he wad dead to the world, but I held my tongue. Half the fun for the giver was the element of surprise. I'd let him surprise me this one time.

Eric kept one hand on my back and leaned around me to open the fridge. There, he pulled out a big pitcher of fruit punch. Behind it I spied a little plastic container with flowers in it.

Unaccountably giddiness bubbled up in me, and I bounced forward on my toes—not hard to do in the sky-scraper heels I was wearing. Bless him! My heart swelled and I felt my nipples tighten a little—but that could have been because of the chill from the fridge. My fingers grasped the sides of his shirt and the firm skin underneath.

"For me?" I breathed, and I felt silly for being so over the moon for just a few flowers. It was like prom. Vampire prom. I had the crazy thought that maybe I'd walk back into the living room to discover it was draped it crepe paper banners and streamers. Maybe we'd get our picture taken together. I closed my eyes. Lord. I was surely losing it now. I was almost more excited about the flowers than the fancy vampire in my living room.

Eric took the flowers out and I saw that they were three red roses, just budding, pinned together. I was just glad they weren't the pornographic flowers in my bedroom—though those were nice in their own way. I held out my wrist but Eric smiled and shook his head. He opened the package with a flick of his thumb and held the flowers to my hair. I felt the clip go in and hold and reached up to feel them.

Eric took my hand from my hair and kissed the back before flipping it over and kissing my throbbing pulse. That really shouldn't have made my breasts and thighs tingle the way it did. I blinked up at him, suddenly shy.

"_Ahora, mi amante, come y permite que mí comparta un pequeño de mi vida con tú."_

I didn't know what he said, but at that moment, I'd let him lead me anywhere.

. .

. .

"Did the humans eat this kind of thing when you lived in Spain?" I asked as he fed me another fig. We were curled on the floor again, with Nando and Mr. Garcia Lorca positioned next to the fireplace, Nando in a chair plucking out some fancy guitar work and Mr. Garcia Lorca standing next to him singing in Spanish, occasionally stomping his foot and clapping his hand.

Eric shrugged and watched my lips while I chewed, then held a glass of the red drink to my lips. "It's called Sangria," he said, his eyes watching as my tongue darted out to lick the salty-sweet remnants of the figs from my lips. Then his eyes shot to mine and he grinned. "It means 'bloodletting' in Spanish."

I would never get used to the things Eric thought were sexy. I rolled my eyes and took the glass in my hand, sipping at the sweet punch. It was really good. A piece of orange floated in the glass and I reached in and sucked it.

A growl erupted from Eric and he descended on my neck, licking and nibbling.

I struggled against his weight. But then he found that spot behind my ear and I was lucky I didn't spill my drink on my way to putting it down.

"Make that sound for me again, lover," he whispered and it seemed to me the guitar got louder, more insistent and Mr. Garcia Lorca's voice got louder too.

My lady parts clenched and I wondered if Eric's plan was just to fuck me to musical accompaniment. I knew him well enough to know that he'd probably get off on that. Stupid horny vampire.

I would put a stop to this, I whimpered. In a minute I would—

I made some kind of sound. I couldn't say if it was what he was looking for but I also couldn't care. My whole attention was focused on where his mouth was dragging over my neck and shoulder, tugging at the bow that held the bodice of my dress up, and where his hands stroked my suddenly ticklish side and teased the underside of my breast. I gripped the back of his shirt with my hands and got a handful of the muscles on his back, pressing him against me.

I'd never get tired of his weight on me.

And as he stroked me—his tongue in my mouth, his hands on my neck and side—the thrumming of the guitar got more insistent, and suddenly Mr. Garcia Lorca was shouting in Spanish, in time with the music—not really singing but kind of… intoning. I lunged at Eric with my mouth and hands, and in between kisses asked what Mr. Garcia Lorca was saying.

Eric obviously didn't want to talk but between kisses and nips and sucks, he translated.

.

"That garland! Hurry! For I am dying!

Weave quickly! Sing! Moan! Sing!

For shadow clouds my throat

and again, for the thousandth time, comes the light of January."

.

Eric moved his hand to my chest and fiddled with the bows at my shoulder before dipping his head and kissing my collarbone and then below it, the tops of my breast. I felt my nipple harden against his chin, peaking up to say hi and beg for a little attention. I groaned, a little too loudly and thought in a part of my brain that I shouldn't be doing this with company over.

But then the guitar and the vampire's voice and Eric's fingers and mouth silenced me. But it was his words that caught in my chest, making it impossible to breathe.

.

"Between your love for me and mine for you

-air of stars and tremor of plant-

a thicket of anemones raises

with a dark moan an entire year."

.

I tangled my fingers in Eric's hair and moaned into his mouth, the music and words making it seem right, imperative. Eric palmed my thigh and pulled back enough for me to see his eyes glint darkly. I bit back the urge to run my hands down under that silly belt buckle and massage what I knew would be hard and straining there. Just the thought of it had me flowing like a fountain. I knew somewhere if I didn't stop this soon I'd be on display and writhing. Well, more than I was now.

But then Eric tickled my neck and I... I'd think about that later. I'd have the strength to stop him... later... I'd... He ghosted his mouth over the healing fang marks and began translating again.

.

"Relish the fresh landscape of my wound,

break rushes and delicate rivulets,

drink blood poured on honeyed thigh."

.

My body tingled, and maybe that was because Eric's fingers were drifting up my thigh and taking my skirt with it. I couldn't... Oh my stars. I put my hand on his wrist, but I was too wobbly to stop its progress. His fingers. His mouth. I licked at his ear and he rumbled in a way that lit my body on fire.

His mouth trailed up to my ear, tugging on it lightly with his dull, regular teeth, making me gasp and bow up against him.

.

"But hurry! so united, entwined," he translated.

"mouth broken by love and soul bitten,

time will find us destroyed."

.

Eric's head had drifted as he spoke and when his mouth found my nipple over the cloth of my dress, I registered the words somewhere in the sex haze of my mind. The time... This was not...

I slapped Eric's hand away, much as I hated to do it.

"This is not the time, Eric!" I sputtered and it came out as a moan. My hips, those traitors, rocked, trying to find something to rub between them.

I groaned and pulled my head up, shoving at Eric until he listened.

But he didn't listen. Of course he didn't. He was a vampire on a mission. He ran his hand up my thigh and pulled his mouth to my ear until I was panting.

"Your honeyed thighs, dear one," he rasped. "Your blood on your honeyed thighs makes me want to rub myself all over you, inside of you."

That really shouldn't have made me want to spontaneously combust the way it did.

"Oh my Lord." My eyes rolled up in my head but then I stiffened. The image of his head between my thighs fought with the knowledge that there was a vampire and a human with ring-side seats to my wantonness. To bring myself back from the brink I reached out with my mind and found Nando. He was... my concentration flickered... he was thinking of the early evening with his vampire, of how he had fed from Mr. Garcia Lorca and run his hands all over him.

I grunted. Not helping.

I tried to find a reason to stop, one that overrode the succulent feel of Eric against me. No. Not in front of them. I didn't care if I never saw them again. My body rebelled at the thought of losing Eric's weight against me but that was just tough. I was... I had to... I pulled Eric's face to mine and kissed him hard one last time, sure my lipstick was gone.

"You better behave, Mr. Northman." I bent my head to straighten his shirt but then my fingers glided over the patch of bare skin where those mother of pearl buttons met and... well... my fingers slipped inside and sought out his nipple. All on their own. I swear.

Eric kissed me back, grunting, his lips the perfect balance of firm and soft and wet, and moving against mine in that I'm-going-to-leave-you-begging-for-more way he had. I looked up at him through my lashes and I swear my body practically lurched at him as he pulled back.

"Not if you're going to keep doing things like that," he said. His lidded eyes raked over me, a physical presence that tickled my skin as it went. I swear, I might as well be naked with him. His hand held mine to his nipple through the fabric of his shirt.

The guitar was playing softly and I could hear the vampire start to speak again, this time more gently and for some reason in English. But I couldn't pull my eyes from Eric's.

"I'm not having sex with you in front of them," I managed.

Eric smiled and it reached his eyes. For a second I thought he was going to put the whammy on me, and I thought I might let him. But then he lunged in for another kiss, and when my lungs were burning for air and my thighs were burning for him, he pulled back.

"Maybe later," he smirked.

His eyes flashed at me. Man. His heart might not beat, but he was totally, totally alive.

I put a hand on his cheek and rubbed my thumb over his sculpted cheekbone. He moved his head and I pulled my hand away. I could just imagine him sucking my thumb into his mouth and... Well, I have manners but I'm also a warm-blooded American woman and there's only so much I can take.

I turned my attention back to the vampire standing next to his human in front of the fire. The lights had been turned off and Mr. Lorca and Nando were backlit by the orange glow of the fire, casting waving shadows across my old rag rug.

The guitar was soft and Mr. Lorca had a proprietary hand on Nando's neck. He was gazing down at his honey but speaking loudly, so I knew we were meant to hear.

.

"Like concentric waves

on the water,

your words

in my heart.

.

Like a bird that collides

with the wind,

you kiss

on my lips.

.

Like open fountains

fronting the night,

my dark eyes

on your skin.

.

My eyes flicked to Eric and I thought about what his look could do to me. How I could feel it like hands sometimes. I moved my hand to his cheek but before it got there, Eric shifted abruptly, looking at me like he wanted to devour me.

.

I'm caught

in your concentric

circles.

.

I wouldn't look away from Eric. I wouldn't. I held his gaze and watched as it softened, flicking from my eyes to my lips to my hair to my breasts. I felt like an old Hollywood movie star, the way he was gazing at me. That old part of me, the part that resisted every time I'd wanted to go to Fangtasia after the blood bond, reared it's head and urged me to sit a proper distance away, just to prove a point to him. Because I couldn't trust him not to rile me up again. Because… But then I shifted my hips and curled against him, giving in to my desire for closeness. Eric's arm wrapped around me.

.

Like Saturn

I lug around

rings

from my dreams.

I'm not totally sunk,

I'm not rising.

My love!

.

With a small movement, I pulled Eric's collar away from his neck and studied the thick ropes of muscle there and the puffy vein that always stuck out. My finger traced it, my lips following after.

.

But my body's

afloat on this bayou,

your kisses."

.

Eric turned his head slightly toward me, eyeing me from the odd angle he was at but not moving to see me better. I looked up at him through my lashes. My body was afloat on something, all right. I thought I could float away, seeing as how I seemed to have sprung a leak between my legs. Gracious, this wasn't ladylike. Not ladylike at all. And the worst part was that I knew both Eric and the vampire could smell it.

I nuzzled my face into Eric's neck, totally giving up on my makeup at this point. I could blame the sangria or the rich food or the music. But I knew what was happening. I knew that I was getting sucked into Eric's orbit as surely as those rings circle Saturn. And for the first time, I couldn't blame the blood bond or resist because of my love and duty to Bill. I had no plausible excuse for why I felt this way.

Which left only one reason, and my back prickled remembering that Eric knew it too.

"I love you," I whispered. I had to hear myself say it, but I still cringed. My voice sounded so small… scared. That wasn't the Stackhouse way. I remembered how totally Momma had loved Daddy. I remembered how loving Gran had been with Grandpa, even if he wasn't the father of her children. They never held out. And they survived.

Well. Mostly.

I imagined my whole life being taken away and having to live under lock and key at Eric's super-secret vamp safe house. My mind conjured all sorts of warnings. But the fact was, I loved Eric. And if it came to any of that, I knew I could get myself out. I'd gotten myself out of the basement of the Fellowship of the Sun and I'd dragged Eric's big, spectacular ass out of the Pyramid of Gizah, too. This wouldn't sink me.

I straightened my back and looked up at Eric as best I could, hoping he didn't see the terror in my eyes.

"I love you." Better: Stronger, clearer. I blinked at the look Eric gave me and desperately wanted to look anywhere else. I may have flinched a little but I held his stare.

Eric's big hand caressed my back in long, soothing strokes and he seemed unnaturally quiet, even for a vampire. His face was on lockdown, but his eyes—they were old again. Ancient. I thought of Jacobi and his whole family and everyone else he'd ever lost. I thought of the bodies piling up around him and then I thought of him with his sword playing bowling for vampires, thought of him dressed in pink spandex, thought of him in his disguises in Dallas and in Jackson, and thought of him the other night when he'd flung me over his shoulder and let out a regular war yelp. And I found the corners of my lips curling up in a small smile.

I rested my head on his shoulder and just watched him in the warm light of the fire, wondering what it was like for him to look the same even as he aged and aged and aged inside. Wondered about him killing Pam and thought about him leering at me after the maenad attack. I thought about him picking glass out of my arm in Dallas and me cleaning his feet in my kitchen. I thought of him posturing with Quinn in Rhodes and stabbing Longshadow in his office. I thought of him dancing with me at Fangtasia, in Rhodes, in this very living room last week. I let my finger trace the lines of his face, and before I knew it I'd followed the path he'd showed me the other night, the one carved by a knife over and over again.

Eric just sat there and watched me with that look he got sometimes, that look I still couldn't decipher. But then his lips twitched up and his fangs slid down and he tilted his chin down and his eyebrows up in a way that I knew so well meant that he knew I was mooning over him. He might as well have puffed up his chest and beat on it, he was so proud. And even though it rankled, I also couldn't deny how adorable he looked when his whole face smiled like that. What was that word?

"Incorrigible," I whispered and returned his smile, feeling a little proud myself. I could just tell he was on the verge of one of those belly laughs I loved so much. Somewhere in the background I heard the guitar still playing. But from where we were snuggled on the floor in front of my couch, I couldn't have cared less.

Eric leaned over and brushed my lips with his. It was like my whole body whimpered and my ribcage felt too small for all the emotions running around in there.

"My Sookie," he sang. I shook my head and laughed, nailing him with a little kiss.

And then Nando's mind was cooing over how sweet we two were and I coughed and turned my head. I could feel the heat in my face, knew what I must look like to them—some silly human pet and her vampire master. But then I could hear Nando's thoughts and knew he didn't think of me that way. If anything, he saw him and his vampire honey in Eric and I. When I glanced at Mr. Garcia Lorca—I was afraid to see myself in his face—he wasn't even looking at me. And if I could have read his mind, I'd bet he wasn't thinking of me either. He was totally focused on Nando. … The way Eric sometimes was with me.

I swallowed hard.

Before I could start feeling the shame that was snaking up my spine, Eric lifted my face and then took my hand in his and stood us both up.

"And I love you. Now, dance with me."

. .

. .

. .

* * *

**A/N:** Here's what Eric says to Sookie, care of moxie mo's killer Spanish: "Now, my lover, eat and permit me to share a little of my life with you."

Federico Garcia Lorca is one of moxie mo's favorite poets (or is that all time favorite poet ever? I get that confused), and I quote, "The only reason Eric would let Sookie anywhere near FGL is because he's totally, definitely gay. Otherwise, he might be jealous." LOL

Lorca did die the way Eric described, though his body was never found—so I figured that was perfect for CH's world. Kind of like Alexei, but less psychotic. I even bought a big compendium of Lorca's poems as a result of researching this chapter. This is what I love about fan fiction: Who would have ever thought that I would discover a new poet because I'm writing a smutty story about Eric and Sookie? Life is good.

I would have loved to use more of Lorca's poems, but I didn't have room. He did a book of poems called Poems of Dark Love that are all blood and sex and death—very vampiric. And there's an absolutely gorgeous poem called "Elegy: To Silence," but it doesn't fit with Sookie's world. Check it out if you're interested.

Lorca's got a Wikipedia page and there are lots of places online you can read his poetry if you're interested.

OK, so now tell me what you think: Yay or nay on Lorca? Are you down with Eric's teasing? Personally, I think there's not enough teasing with sex, but that's just me. It makes the actual sex that much more delicious. And if Eric is as great of a lover as we all think he is, then he knows when to withhold as well as he knows when to give you exactly what you want. ***raises eyebrows***

Tell me what you think!


	30. Chapter 30: Dancing With Duende

**Last time on Healing Blood:**

_I rested my head on his shoulder and just watched him in the warm light of the fire, wondering what it was like for him to look the same even as he aged and aged and aged inside. Wondered about him killing Pam and thought about him leering at me after the maenad attack. I thought about him picking glass out of my arm in Dallas and me cleaning his feet in my kitchen. I thought of him posturing with Quinn in Rhodes and stabbing Longshadow in his office. I thought of him dancing with me at Fangtasia, in Rhodes, in this very living room last week. I let my finger trace the lines of his face, and before I knew it I'd followed the path he'd showed me the other night, the one carved by a knife over and over again._

_Eric just sat there and watched me with that look he got sometimes, that look I still couldn't decipher. But then his lips twitched up and his fangs slid down and he tilted his chin down and his eyebrows up in a way that I knew so well meant that he knew I was mooning over him. He might as well have puffed up his chest and beat on it, he was so proud. And even though it rankled, I also couldn't deny how adorable he looked when his whole face smiled like that. What was that word?_

_"Incorrigible," I whispered and returned his smile, feeling a little proud myself. I could just tell he was on the verge of one of those belly laughs I loved so much. Somewhere in the background I heard the guitar still playing. But from where we were snuggled on the floor in front of my couch, I couldn't have cared less._

_Eric leaned over and brushed my lips with his. It was like my whole body whimpered and my ribcage felt too small for all the emotions running around in there._

_"My Sookie," he sang. I shook my head and laughed, nailing him with a little kiss._

_And then Nando's mind was cooing over how sweet we two were and I coughed and turned my head. I could feel the heat in my face, knew what I must look like to them—some silly human pet and her vampire master. But then I could hear Nando's thoughts and knew he didn't think of me that way. If anything, he saw him and his vampire honey in Eric and I. When I glanced at Mr. Garcia Lorca—I was afraid to see myself in his face—he wasn't even looking at me. And if I could have read his mind, I'd bet he wasn't thinking of me either. He was totally focused on Nando. … The way Eric sometimes was with me._

_I swallowed hard._

_Before I could start feeling the shame that was snaking up my spine, Eric lifted my face and then took my hand in his and stood us both up._

_"And I love you. Now, dance with me."_

. .

. .

**Chapter 30: Dancing with Duende**

. .

**Sookie's POV**

Eric moved me to the middle of the room, his strong hands and gripping my hips. My skin instantly went prickly, and it wasn't from the heat of the fireplace. I put my hands over his and looked at him over my shoulder. I imagined threading my fingers through his soft hair, pulling him in for a kiss, his fingers sliding up my thighs.

Eric raised his eyebrow at me in disapproval—he'd told me to stand still facing forward—and the look in his eyes froze me where I stood. They were molten. (A good word of the day.) You know when you light a barbeque and the flames start out regular red and orange, but as they get hotter and the flames get more intense, they turn blue, almost white? Like that. The light from the fireplace flickering on him only made his eyes seem to waver like their own flame. His eyes swept over me, rippling my skin like a pebble on a lake.

His fingers dug into my hips and he leaned down to me.

"Eyes forward."

And then he was gone, and I had to fight the impulse to back up and find his heavy weight again. Instead, I tucked some hair behind my ear and shifted my weight back and forth on my heels. I took a moment to appreciate that just a week and a half ago, I was barely upright, let alone wearing heels and getting ready to mambo with a certain tall, surprisingly lithe vampire. I shifted from one hip to the other and bounced a little on my feet, confident that no matter what else happened, I could always dance.

I wouldn't think too much right now about what—and who—had made me want to dance.

Well, I didn't think we were actually going to mambo. Eric said something characteristically cryptic about teaching me an "erotic dance." I didn't know what he meant but if there was a chance I'd get to rub up against him in a socially acceptable way, I wouldn't pass it by.

So I stood, facing forward and looking at that photo of Gran in her youth, in some beautiful, long gown, staring back at me coyly. Had she ever danced with her fairy man, I wondered. And then I felt a little sick, imagining her going behind Paw-paw's back with my real grandfather.

But just then, Eric approached, and I swallowed, frozen in place by the stare he was giving me. If I didn't know that walking out of this house would send me reeling and wailing with fear, I'd swear Eric had up and transported us to one of my romance novels. Suddenly, I felt like I should be wearing some big, overdone gown, with a pile of hair on my head. I tilted my head slightly and could imagine Eric with his hair braided in that special way he had, wearing a velvet waistcoat (that's what they always called them in my books, though I never did figure out what those were) and a flowy white top underneath.

I'll tell you this: Eric could give Claude a run for his money in that romance-novel cover model contest any day of the week. I narrowed my eyes at him, thinking of all the places I could bite and suck and about what always happened not long after the heroes and heroines in my books danced to music like this. I almost wished I was wearing one of those stuffy bodices so Eric could rip it, I thought, eyes intent on the little tufts of hair curling up from the top of his shirt. I couldn't wait to get Eric's thigh between mine and press my chest against his.

I held my hand up and Eric gently held my fingertips, leaning down and brushing his lips over the back of my hand and then the thin blue veins of my wrist, all the while holding my gaze. I blushed, thinking that that hooded look he was giving me reminded me of the one he got as I rushed toward my happy moment. My body reacted to the memory, tensing and opening at once. It felt like more than the polite way to start a dance. It seemed like a promise. A dare. I narrowed my eyes slightly at him and nodded almost imperceptibly.

I don't know if it was that memory or all the making out we'd been doing, but I felt like... Was I that turned on? No, I... I couldn't be. I gulped hard and swished my thighs together wetly. I closed my eyes.

"Sookie..."

It was just a soft whisper. Probably as loud as shouting to Mr. García Lorca, but so faint I more felt it than heard it. I turned my eyes to look at the goosebumps that rose around where his breath drifted up my arm. I didn't know why, but I hesitated to meet his eyes. I felt like I could light the night with my cheeks. I swept my gaze over Eric's strong legs, lingered on that belt buckle with the things dangling from it—as if he needed to draw more attention to that area. My eyes slowly lifted up, admiring the strong planes of his body and how the fabric of his shirt pulled just slightly against them to hint at how gorgeous he was naked.

My God. I was in so much trouble. And at the moment, I couldn't say I minded.

His fingers drifted down, and after a moment of cross-eyed arousal, I realized he was tracing the blue line of my vein with the lightest touch of his calloused fingertips. Holding my hand aloft, Eric shifted and switched passed my fingers from one of his hands to the other. He stepped close and the coolness of his body was a nice respite from the heat of the fire.

"There was a time, dear one," he started, his voice soft, "when religion was even more violent and threatening than it is here and now," he whispered against my skin. "The fanatics of the Iberian Peninsula make the Fellowship of the Sun look like riled kittens."

I read, so I knew a little history. I hazarded a guess. "The Spanish Inquisition?"

Eric chuckled breathily and I caught the scent that was purely him. A tingling rush spread out under my skin. He smiled that impish grin and nodded, returning his gaze to the sensitive flesh on the inside of my elbow. I swear, this man could turn any part of me into an erogenous zone.

"Not expecting that? Few do," he smirked, and I rolled my eyes. Trust Eric to know that one bit of pop culture. He was standing in front of me now, so I could see clearly when he shrugged and bent over me. "It was a brutal time, for humans and vampires."

"Bet you loved that," I said, but my biting tone disappeared into a gasp as Eric leaned down to nuzzle my inner elbow and trace his cool tongue down to my wrist.

"Sometimes," he shrugged when he came up to meet my eyes, sounding a little too offhand. I looked at him out of the corner of my eye wondering what he was hiding. I wanted to be irritated, but all I could do was marvel that he looked the same 500 years ago as he does now. It didn't seem fair.

I pulled away from him, seeing him clearly for the first time that night. Yes, he probably looked _exactly_ the same during the Spanish Inquisition. That face—that beautiful face that was always looking at me like I mattered for reasons I couldn't fathom—was the last thing a lot of humans ever saw. Even now, that's likely true. I worried for a moment over my ability to love a killer—thinking for the hundredth time about all those women who fell in love with serial killers on death row. Thinking about Arlene. I wondered again at what my Christian upbringing would say about it. Would it tell me to turn the other cheek? Or remind me that murders (along with sorcerers and whoremongers) will have their place on the lake of fire and brimstone—and experience their second death? That's what the Fellowship said. But then, after Dallas and after Arlene helped those two zealots kill my sister-in-law and try to kill me, I figured they were setting up for their own bit of lakefront property.

But if that were the case, I'd be there right along with Eric and Rene and all the rest of them. I can't say I regretted being the last thing a few humans—and supes—saw as I punched their number. With most of them, I'd do it all over again, and a few more were on my list. Anyone could kill. I knew that better than just about anybody. Besides, if I was going to exclude killers from my dating pool, I wouldn't have a fella left.

Even without the bond, Eric could tell I was upset by the mental sidetrip I'd just taken myself on. He held my hand firmly and smiled, staring at my chest. Figures—I'm thinking about murder and the fate of my eternal soul, and he's thinking of sex. And darn it if it didn't smile right back.

Though his eyes were unrepentantly glued to my chest, he still seemed to be thinking about something besides my boobs. "We all do what we must," he shrugged, and I swallowed down the bile. "The humans were the least of my concerns, though. There was order to be created in my world, new alliances to form—not all of them pleasant." His eyes flickered over my face before his hand brushed the nape of my neck, massaging a little. He didn't stop until I sighed and closed my eyes.

Then he spun me around, holding my hand over my head until I came to a stop and then he bowed, kissing the heated skin of my hand again. "Anyway," he breathed against me, "The point is, in addition to expelling humans from Spain, they also frowned on sex in all its expression." He held my hand out and stepped away from me, punctuating his sudden bow with, "This dance, for instance, was outlawed for obscenity."

Eric raised his eyes to mine and it's almost like he hadn't just shrugged off the Spanish Inquisition as just another human inconvenience. I'd hate to hear what he thought of the Holocaust. All I could see was that challenging, hungry look that told me he wanted more than blood, and all night long. Oh. Oh my gracious.

I was such a bad Christian. Right at that moment, I didn't care much about harm done to others, either.

As if on cue, Nando started strumming his guitar, and my head raced. Was this the Lambada? Was it that old? I tried hard to rein in my laughter when an image popped in my head of ladies with big powdered wigs and men in short trousers bumping and grinding with each other, but it was no use. Eric shot me a look that dissolved that image into one of him pressed against me like Johnny on Baby, and I found my mouth opened slightly. I couldn't say I'd mind doing a little dirty dancing with Eric. I knew he could sweep me off my feet. He'd done it plenty of times—literally.

I stood up straight and Eric whispered, "Don't move, lover."

The quiet music reverberated in my small living room. It wasn't anything like what it was before. There was no thumping, no melody to hitch my cart to. It was more... forceful somehow, but also slower. Just when I thought Nando was going to up and stop playing, he'd pluck out another deep, resonant chord and the whole room would throb with it.

"Keep watching me, Sookie," he said, drawing closer to me. "Don't close your eyes." He wrapped his free arm around my waist and, like the human-shaped puddle of goo I was, I molded around him. I pressed my head back to look at him and breathed shallowly. I could feel his hard body pressed into all my soft spots. I was so on edge and he hadn't even touched me yet, at least not in any way that counted.

His fingertips ghosted just down my side, over my ribs and what I meant as a laugh came out as a breathy moan-laugh hybrid. I felt myself blush deeper.

He leaned in so close I thought he was going to kiss me and I opened my mouth slightly to receive him.

But he didn't. Instead, he whispered into my lips, "Would you like me to teach it to you?"

I laughed in kind of an excited hiccup and nodded my head, leaning in to run my lips over his Adam's apple. I felt him growl against all my sensitive parts and I was almost dizzy by the time he pulled back.

He placed his hand behind his back and held his shoulders back proudly. Then he started circling me in slow, florid steps, measured to the throbbing melody of the guitar.

My skin prickled with awareness of him, the hair on my arms standing up like a tuning fork and following his progress as he began to move. On a particularly heavy down stroke of Nando's guitar, Eric paused in front of me and, at arm's length, dropped the hand he was still holding and traced just his fingertips down my throat, past my clavicle and over the tops of my breasts. He stopped just shy of my perked-up nipples and I wanted to make a tiny hop to close the distance. The lift of Eric's eyebrows told me I shouldn't. I raised my own eyebrow to him.

So it was a game. Oh, it was _on_.

When the music went back to a tinkling melody, Eric began moving again, pausing only when he got to my other arm, to take my hand and nuzzle the veins of my other wrist. That really shouldn't be as sexy as it was, but the white-blue flames of Eric's eyes made it scorching. I needed his cool touch to douse me a little.

When he got to just behind me, he ran his fingertips over the curve of my butt and the sensitive top of my thighs. I sighed and closed my eyes.

And so it went. Turned out, this was the opposite of the Lambada. No bumping, no grinding. Just Eric circling me slowly, stopping at north, south, east and west to tease me, in ever closer spirals. I wasn't to touch him or stop him, and sometimes I was so aware of the vampire poet and his musician boyfriend that I was beet red.

Though this little dance started with his fingertips brushing my skin, soon he was dragging his big hands across my lower belly, spinning me around just so he could cop a feel of my butt, kneeling in front of me and running his hand up under my skirt or kissing my belly. Just like in that first shower we had together, he never touched me where it counted, and I about whimpered in frustration. And no matter how much I tried to turn away, to ignore that Eric was doing this to me in front of an audience, Eric wouldn't let me look away from him. He held my gaze, calming me with a look that made me feel shy when I really wasn't. He wasn't trying to humiliate me. He was just a big, horny vampire. _My_ big, horny vampire. I had smiled at him and caressed his face, breaking his rules. He kissed my fingertips.

Finally, he was pressed against my back with his hand sneaking up my thigh to tease my oversensitive flesh there, and whispering in my ear, "I will buy you five of these dresses if I can rip this one off you tonight."

He nipped at my neck and licked up the trickle of blood there. He growled and I could feel what my blood, my dress... me—what _I_ did to him pressing into my lower back. I leaned back into him and closed my eyes, grabbing at the fine fabric of his fancy dress pants and did a little groping of the skin underneath myself.

_Let the bodice-ripping begin,_ I thought.

Then Eric moved away from me and I turned to him, confused and irritated. But just as quick, he'd taken my hand again, bowing and kissing it as he looked up at me. He rose to his full height and suddenly was still the way only a vampire could be. He was like one of those paintings in the Scooby-Doo cartoons I watched as a kid—everything frozen but the eyes, which watched you with some kind of sneaky intent behind them.

He held his hand out for me and then I got it. It was my turn. I smiled. What's good for the goose is good for the gander. Let's see how _he_ likes it.

I thought about all those novels I'd read, and thought about what little I knew about Spain and then I looked at Eric. So ancient and beautiful. And yet somehow here with me now, teaching me things, being attentive. My stomach clenched and rolled, overwhelmed with the sensation and confusion of being wanted by someone like Eric. Sometimes I didn't exactly know why, but looking in his eyes just then, I felt beautiful... and loved. And I was overcome with a wave of love and lust so strong that, with our guests here, there was only one thing for me to do—channel it into a dance.

And so I did. Like Eric, I started small. I curtsied like I'd seen ladies do in movies, but this time when I brought my lips to his hand, I moved to his fingers and, looking right in his eyes like the dare it was, I sucked his finger into my mouth, swirling my tongue around it and sucking lightly. Just when I saw the flame grow hotter in Eric's eyes, I let his finger slip from my mouth and smiled sweetly.

A caress of his broad chest, with an extra little rub of his nipple...

A caress of his muscled thigh...

A dip of fingertips just under his waistband...

Another curtsy, but this time when I kissed his other hand, I burrowed it into my bosom, eliciting a growl from Eric...

A caress of his neck where I'd bitten...

And his shoulder where I'd bitten...

And his wrist where he'd bitten for me half a dozen times...

I could feel the slow, determined music in my bones, could feel each chord pluck through me. I grabbed his arms and wrapped them around me as I did a slow slide down his body and back up. I smiled wickedly and closed my eyes, spinning to face him but forcing his arms off me. Well, tugging them off me and Eric let me, anyway.

I moved to his side and wrapped one of his arms around my lower back while I dipped myself backward, throwing my head back and baring my throat to him, thrusting my breasts up at him...

Eventually, I was nothing but a channel for the beat, which was coming faster now, the rhythm seeping into my little toe and left hip and everywhere else. I spun and shimmied and pressed against him. I swiveled and undulated. I switched my legs back and forth in front of me, imitating what I remember seeing a Spanish lady do in an old movie Gran used to like. I reached up behind me, rubbing Eric's neck and snaking my hands into his hair, giving it a yank. Eric growled lowly and I thought I'd earned that growl. I was proud.

Finally, the song crescendoed and Eric picked me up and lifted me above him for a second and then slid me down his body to a low, deep dip. I was panting from exertion, hot from my own sweat and what Eric did to me. I was so close to the ground I almost wished he'd just drop me and lay himself on top of me.

My arms were wrapped around his neck. His body was so close you couldn't have slipped a credit card between us. His eyes bore down into mine and mine bore up into his. It was totally silent in the room except for the crackling of the fire. And in that moment, it really was just Eric and I, like it always was when we danced.

I ran my palm up his neck, my thumb toying with his thick vein, and caressed his face. I wanted nothing but him, right now.

Eric's eyes were bare, and I could see his emotions in a way that he never allowed normally. I might have been delirious from lack of bloodflow to my brain, but I swore I could see every bit of grief, every moment that filled his still chest with pride. It all funneled into me from his eyes and I sagged against his strong hands, letting him take all my weight. My fingers traced his lips. I wanted to tell him to take me. Instead I whispered, "I can see why that was outlawed."

A slow smile spread across Eric's face and his eyes flicked across my features as he caught a few strands of my hair between his fingers. His eyes lit up with down and dirty glee and he began chuckling. It was contagious, as Eric's happiness often was, and I began to smile, watching the skin around his eyes crinkle and his body fill out with joy.

"Oh my Sookie," he whispered against my lips.

"My Eric," I teased back and ran my hand into his hair.

And suddenly his lips were on mine, or mine were on his and we were sucking and nibbling and giggling and pressing into one another. Our tongues twisted and twined and the pull of his lips tugged on something much lower. Before I knew it, I was standing upright again and gasping for breath, and yet I wanted to climb inside of him. I wanted to take whatever I could get from him, whatever he would give, I was so ... Yeah. So something.

Just as Eric's hands began traveling down my back to my butt, I heard something and jerked back. That's when I realized Eric had so bewitched me that I'd totally forgotten we had company. I slapped at Eric's chest to get him to release me, which he did after a minute, the glee in his eyes not dampened one bit by my embarrassment.

I stepped away from him but discovered real fast that was a bad idea. My legs were too shaky. Maybe I'd always be able to dance, but the bedrest hadn't done anything for my leg strength. At least that's the story I'm going with. I leaned back into Eric, almost in defeat, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't thrilled to rest my head on his chest and wrap my arms around his muscled back. He felt cool against my heated skin and I sighed happily.

To cool my jets, I glanced at the vampire poet and his guitar-playing squeeze. _Mistake_. I looked away real quick. If my own kissy face embarrassed me in front of others, then I was even more uncomfortable with the looks Nando and Mr. García Lorca were giving each other. They were too... personal for my eyes. Instead, I ran my free hand down Eric's back over and over again. It felt oddly cozy, us two human-vamp couples sharing a romantic night. Eric was busy running his nose over my jaw and neck and he'd started that purring thing again, vibrating against my whole body. My heart caught and then thudded double-time in my chest to catch up. I moved my fingers in tight circles against his nipple.

"You are a hard-hearted woman, Miss Stackhouse." He smirked at me, holding my hand just where it was as I flicked his nipple. He quirked an eyebrow and I rolled my eyes, not caring who saw.

The fingers of my free hand flew to the flowers in my hair and I laughed, my breath bouncing off Eric's face as he peeled back his lip to show me what our dance had done to his fangs. I leaned forward and kissed the side of his mouth gently, and then kissed his upper lip, just where his fang was peaking out.

"Eric," I whispered and looked up at him. "I have a gift for you."

Eric rumbled in pleasure and his fingers tugged lightly at the bows on my shoulder. His eyes flashed with delight. "Do I get to unwrap it?"

He had to hear how my heart thudded the Macarena at that. I breathed deep to catch my breath but all it did was draw Eric's attention to my cleavage.

I slapped his hands away and pulled back, wiggling out from under him. Then I ran my hand from my neck to the tops of my breasts, just to pay back some of the teasing he'd done earlier.

"Oh yes," I said. "But not until later. When we're alone."

My gaze flicked to the poet and guitarist and Eric quickly turned to them. He did a single nod and Mr. García Lorca bowed.

"We will take our break now, won't we, Nando?" he purred leaning down to nuzzle into the loose curls around Nando's ear.

Nando smiled and closed his eyes and then moved to rest his guitar carefully against the far wall. He took his vamp's hand and started leading him toward the front door.

Suddenly remembering my manners, I turned to them. "Um, there's sangria in the kitchen if you want a drink."

Mr. García Lorca chuckled low in his throat, and maybe it was how worked up Eric had made me, but that might have been the dirtiest chuckle I'd ever heard. He opened the door and pulled Nando close. "Oh, we have our refreshments taken care of."

He rested a hand on Nando's neck and I could see the blush on Nando's cheek.

I quickly turned away. "Uh, yeah. Well, you enjoy."

Yep, that was me. Smooth as a ton of bricks.

**Eric's POV**

Lorca's low chuckle sounded again and I knew how he felt. I was urgent to feast on my own human. But just before he shut the door, Lorca called out to me in his modern Spanish. It wasn't a dialect I knew, but I was able to piece together what he said.

"The _duende_," he whispered in Spanish, his gaze resting on Sookie. "She runs in your blood and you in hers."

I stilled, surprised at his observation. But I shouldn't have been.

I had seen Lorca speak at Sophie-Ann's court years ago, not long after his turning and return to America. In his human life, he'd created this idea of _duende_—an explanation for creativity that spoke to the consuming pain, not the joy, of creation. His _duende_ was no gentle muse. It was a dark figure, a mischievous goblin or fairy, something that attempted to overtake you, to nearly kill you. I tightened my arm around Sookie. He'd taught that it affected all forms of art, but particularly song or dance, a form that required the artist to push outside herself, to locate the "dominant profile" of the music and seek to build a physical manifestation of it—he'd called it the music's "architecture"—and Sookie captured that spirit with everything she had, from the point of her toes to the batting of her lashes.

I peered down at my Sookie—finally mine—and ran my hand down her sweat-dampened back and back up to the nape of her neck. Mine. As usual her gaze was not reverent or even soft. It was spiked with annoyance that we were speaking Spanish in front of her.

I looked down at her again briefly, suddenly calculating what this observation could mean for me—and for Sookie—in de Castro's court.

"You are brave," Lorca added in Spanish, interrupting my train of thought. I looked at him, studiously dispassionate. "_You know the duende does not come at all unless she sees that death is possible. But with duende, it is easier to love than understand._"

Watching him, I didn't dare believe his kind eyes, or trust that he would not betray this realization to his masters. Plans began forming themselves in my mind. But I would deal with them later.

The most important thing was to get him away from my Sookie and settle her. Then I would face the poet.

"_Si_," I concluded, switching back to English. I rubbed the nape of her neck soothingly and watched as her eyes softened. "I have finally caught my fairy."

As I saw Sookie's ire flare again, I knew I'd said the wrong thing. As Sookie rounded on me, her finger already pressing into my chest and her expression a muddle of anger and confusion and despair, I thought, _My excitable _duende_._ I enfolded her in my arms, enjoying the way her warmth seeped into my skin through our clothes. Far too many clothes. I brushed wisps of hair over her shoulder and felt myself grin as she shivered. I couldn't remember the last time I'd grinned so much.

Her eyes flickered across my face, and I could see she was processing what I said. It was of no matter, and I found myself reaching back in my mind to discover what I could have said that would so upset her.

"That is where you are wrong, _Senor_. You can never catch _duende_," Lorca said from the door, and I knew his voice was so low that Sookie was straining to hear him, though he now spoke in English. Her lean toward Lorca's voice pressed her breasts deliciously into me and I growled by instinct. "You have only to experience it and enjoy it while it lasts."

**Sookie's POV**

I had no clue what they were talking about but if Eric thought he could go around bragging to his vampire buddies that he'd caught himself a fairy, he had another think coming. For someone who's so often calculating, he sure had a lot of nerve to up and start announcing that I was a fairy. But then, maybe after the Fairy War, the cat was out of the bag. Still, after what I'd been through, that seemed… dangerous.

But if Mr. García Lorca's interest was piqued, he didn't show it. He just stuck his head back inside and shook his head at Eric, a dark smile on his face.

With that, the door clicked shut. I heard Nando laugh throatily on the porch and I threw my shields up so fast I almost gave myself a headache. I did not need to be in on their private pleasure. And I wasn't sure I was going to let any pleasure happen between Eric and me, either, until I understood what they'd been talking about. If there was anything I'd learned about the supernatural world, it was that when supes talk about you, you'd better run for the hills.

I was thinking all this as I approached the side table holding Eric's gifts. I grabbed them and lowered myself onto the couch next to him. I'd been planning to make myself comfortable on his lap, but not until I understood what the hell they were talking about. His arms were resting on the couch cushions and he looked so luminous in the firelight. And so relaxed. Sometimes I hated my honeybun.

"So now you're runnin' around telling folks about my background?" I hissed in a whisper, not wanting Mr. García Lorca to hear, even if he already knew. I held the gifts just out of his reach. "What—now you can brag you got yourself a fairy for a pet?"

Eric fingered the bow on my shoulder and chuckled without much amusement. When he looked up at me, his eyes made me stop cold. I couldn't quite get my mind around what I was seeing. Was Eric sad? And why was he looking at me like I was about to run? Funny how that look made me want to.

"Are you offering, lover?" he asked, and I didn't like the weird tone in his voice one bit. A panic started rising in me, like this was a turning point for us, and not in a good way. "To be my pet?"

**Eric's POV**

The amber of the firelight lit up Sookie's shoulder, and I fixated there, fingering the little bow that taunted me. I focused there as my mind ran on to an image of Sookie in my bed, every morning, of rising to her warm and naked every night, of feasting on her, body and blood. Of keeping her safe, always. Of watching over her. Of knowing when she was in trouble. Of, perhaps, erasing the troubles of the last two months, of Sookie being well in body and spirit.

I found I was gripping her shoulder and had curled her toward me.

But she was not the pliant Sookie of my fantasies. Instead, she stiffened and struggled against my hold, mumbling against my chest as she pushed the flat of her hand against me, "Not hardly."

I found I didn't mind. I nodded and smiled, the expression coming more naturally than last time. I let her up and caressed her shoulder, brushing past the bow.

"No lover," I responded, and I could hear that my voice was deep and low. "Lorca is referring to _duende_—a kind of fairy or goblin. A mischief-maker." I allowed the chuckle forming low in my chest to bubble up, as I watched her eyes flash with disdain. She had no idea how predictable she was. Still, her spine softened a bit as I ran the back of one knuckle over her delicate throat and clavicle. "It's a Spanish concept, one Lorca used to explain artists who reach a transcendent state. He lectured about it in his human life."

Her brow was furrowed, and I watched her as she began to process the concept. I took great pride in the current slowness of her thinking, because it meant that my touch, my dance, had had the intended effect.

I tilted her chin so she would look up at me, and I could see her mind catching up. Before she could ask the question I could see forming in her mind, I looked into her eyes, shaking her chin just a little, remembering her contrary behavior, her refusal to stay with me so many months ago when I'd offered up my home.

"It is an irrational creature with a dash of the diabolical in it." She jerked away and I laughed. But just then, I was overcome with other memories, of an unarmed human stopping her car for a scared and threatened vampire over a year ago. I considered my thoughts and plunged ahead. I would not admit that the demon or Pam's idiotic advice-column sanctimoniousness had any sway over me. "It is everything. It is life"—I stroked her neck down to her breasts, laying my hand over Sookie's heart, which was hammering with recognition. She clung to me slightly, her eyes going soft. I brushed my lips over her temple—"it's death. It's the understanding of the complimentary nature of the two. It raises your awareness of the mortality. It helps you appreciate the fleeting nature of every experience." I pulled her to me again, and this time she didn't resist. "It is the trembling of the moment, followed by the long silence."

**Sookie's POV**

Oh.

I reached up and caressed Eric's face, those gifts forgotten on the floor at Eric's feet. Was that pain in his eyes? I snuggled into him, because it seemed like the thing to do.

"It certainly is _not_ a pet—nothing you can possess, no matter how you want to." He pulled me onto his lap, and, damn him, I let him. "It's something you fight with, you do battle with. You never give in. Neither does it. You know it's there when your soul aches."

He tightened his arms around me in a near death grip and I thought for a moment that I was going to lose this fight.

**Eric's POV**

"Oh," she said, confusion and realization turning the word into a conviction. I, meanwhile, had an odd sensation—not at all pleasant—of feeling unmoored, of floating, of Sookie's scant weight holding me down. She leaned in close and, as if to anchor me, brushed a soft kiss my chest. I answered her kiss with one of my own, mind soft, thoughtful, as I examined this new sensation within me. I disliked how Sookie was changing me in some ways.

She leaned back and looked at me, her gaze hungry. I brushed my hand over her shoulder again and played with a strand of hair as I composed myself.

"And of course," I whispered against her ear, feeling more myself, "it's very, very troublesome."

I pulled back and smiled to see the scowl settling on her fine features. I chuckled and pulled her closer, nuzzling her neck. "My _duende_," I murmured into the damp skin there.

And just like that, she seemed to give up her fight, squeezing me back gently and settling against me. _Mine._ I tightened my fingers on her hips and she responded, rubbing against my very prominent erection, tentatively at first.

For one fine moment, it was as if Victor and Niall and Bill had never come between us. It was as if she truly were my wife, and I her husband, as if we could have what we'd both longed for a year ago—to have a home, to be married. What I promised her all that time ago when I didn't know myself but knew her intimately.

I felt Sookie's breath deepen, and for a second I thought she'd fallen asleep, hand resting against my erection and all. But then she sucked in another deep breath and pulled back. Reluctantly, I released her. She stood unsteadily and, with hooded eyes, backed away from me. She picked up her dishes, and turned from me, her skirt flaring in the most delicious way. I felt a faint growl vibrate my chest as she turned and walked toward the kitchen, swishing her hips widely for my benefit.

Yes. My wife. My_ duende_. Mine.

A breathy laugh came from her and she looked at me over her shoulder. She knew exactly what she was doing to me. I tensed, for a second imagining chasing her again. She blushed and I wondered if she'd had the same thought.

"Relax, Eric," she chided, though her tone was far from convincing. "We have plenty of time. And plenty more of the date to go."

**Sookie's POV**

I walked back in the room feeling a little saner, a little more put together, and a lot horny. As I approached Eric, I scooped the presents off the floor and held the little gift bags forward, hooked on my index finger.

Instead of reaching for the bags, of course, Eric reached forward and began smoothing his hands up and down my legs.

Before I let myself just fall on top of him and straddle him, I moved to sit on the couch, crossed my legs at the ankle and dropped the bags onto his lap. He laughed and moved to pull me until I was pressed into his side.

"Dear one," Eric laughed. "Is this the photo of you I requested?"

I flashed to Eric's request for a naked photo of me, like the ones of him that were crowding my dresser now. I closed my eyes at the thought of all those naked Erics and shook my head.

"Heh. Not likely. But I still think you'll like it. Open up."

Eric raised an eyebrow and then frowned. You'd think he'd never gotten a gift bag before. He started pulling out the tissue paper like it was Kleenex from a tissue box and letting it flutter to the ground.

"Oh for heaven's sake," I huffed and snatched the bag from him. I reached in and pulled out the small box and then dropped to the floor beside him. I held the box out in front of his nose and did the honors. As the lid slid up I said, "Now, it's not me, but I hope that when you're walking around without me, these will remind you of me."

I looked at the cuff links nestled into the padding of the little white box, the little illustrations of a blond pinup with her hands behind her head and her breasts thrust outward decorating them, and glanced at Eric's eyes, which were already flashing with humor. Eric's laugh was loud enough to make the single-pane glass of the living room windows shiver. He pulled me onto his lap and kissed and licked at my neck, his cool breath tickling my saliva-wetted skin. My nipples perked up automatically. I laughed too, even though nothing was funny—just for the pleasure of it, just for the joy of hearing Eric's laugh like that.

"My lover," he crooned at me as I fiddled with the cuff links in his fancy shirt, trying to figure out how to remove them. Distractedly, he removed the link in one quick movement and began replacing it with the new link. "You always surprise me."

He seemed genuinely tickled and surprised and I was proud of myself for having pulled one over on such an old guy. I gingerly dropped the old cuff link into the box and picked up the second one. Eric held his wrist out to me and, on impulse, I kissed his veins of his wrist before threading the link through the French cuffs. I could swear that Eric stilled at that.

"What? You don't think I know what cuff links are?" I asked, and I could hear the thread of irritation in my voice. Suddenly it occurred to me that he might be slumming, entertaining himself with a down-home girl between queens and socialites, who of course would think nothing of paying $100 for a pair of cuff links.

I felt Eric's big hand on my waist an instant before I was flush against him. It happened so fast that my brain was still working out how to get the link to stay in place when I found myself eyeball to eyeball with a very entertained vampire.

"My lover," he started slowly, softly, kissing my lips and nibbling until the irritation started to fade of its own volition. "I never thought you'd give me another woman to take around with me while you are here," he whispered into my lips. "Thank you. I love them."

He'd moved on to my neck and was sucking on that spot behind my ear that makes my brain short circuit. "You're… ahh... welcome," I panted out when I could catch my breath. Good lord. Could a person have a heart attack from too much arousal? What I was feeling couldn't be good for a body. I clung to him tighter anyway.

His hands were everywhere and suddenly I felt a big palm press into my breast, squeezing and sending a thrill through my nipple. I grunted none too ladylike.

"Of course, I prefer the real thing," he murmured against my skin. "But I suppose these will suffice."

I dug my nails into his shoulders. "Suffice, huh?" I grunted again and began to move against him, pressing myself rhythmically into his hand, his chest, his arousal.

In a flash I was laid out flat on the couch and a big vampire was pressing me into the cushions. I couldn't have been happier for the weight of him on me. His knee nudged between mine and the syrupy flow of pleasure from where his muscled leg hit my soft skin made me feel almost drunk. _Sangria's got nothing on Eric_, I thought absently right before Eric's mouth and tongue made me forget my words.

I vaguely felt air on my thigh and hip, and then cool, calloused hands running over the skin there, teasing under the lace of my panties. I heard some soft high-pitched sounds off in the distance and after a moment realized they must be me. And then I felt a long, hard finger slip inside my flooded core and my whole body bowed. I bit my lip so I didn't scream in pleasure. I wasn't sure why, but I knew there was some reason not to make a loud fuss right now.

He felt so good, so right inside me. _So right. So right_. It was all I could think as I turned my head to the side and squeezed my eyes tight as I felt another finger pinch down on my little bundle of nerves, rubbing over it in superfast circles. I whimpered out my breaths, trying to remember to breath. He was just... Oh Lord in Heaven, Eric was just everything right then. I couldn't think of anything else. I let my knees fall open as wide as I could make them in this particular position and bucked my hips, seeing little flashing lights of warning behind my eyelids.

And then his big thumb filled my mouth when I staggered for breath and I found myself sucking it, delirious with what he was doing to me, how he was controlling everything about my body just then. I bucked and he pressed, swirled, growled, nuzzled. I sucked. I swirled my tongue over the pad of his thumb, trying to draw him into me in some kind of way as his fingers invaded me and sent me hurdling into a great, shining moment.

When I came back to myself, I found myself licking sweet remnants of Eric's blood from my lips and looking around dazedly for my vampire lover. I found him kneeling on the carpet in front of the couch, his mouth licking up evidence of my pleasure from my super-sensitive thighs. I tried to tell my legs to move, my stomach to engage so I could scoot myself into a sitting position, but my whole body just lay there, boneless. The best I could do was murmur some wordless thing to get his attention.

"This will suffice—for now," he said, lifting my far leg and giving one long lick up the gusset of my panties which, it turned out, were still in tact and again covering my ticklish lady parts. I shuddered as an aftershock ran through me. I lifted a heavy arm and caressed his golden head. I sighed and nodded and then lifted my head to look at him, confused.

He held up his now-rumpled dress shirt and the cuff link flashed in the firelight. "They will suffice," he repeated, smirking at how out of it I was. "But eventually I will have you on here. You will yield to me in this just as you have yielded to me in other, more pleasurable things."

He raised a challenging eyebrow and lowered his head to continue to clean me up. Any protests were swallowed up in the sensation of his cool tongue and soft lips on my thighs.

"Did I drink your blood?" I finally asked, when I felt like my body might respond to my commands. I pulled myself upright and flipped my skirt back down, checking my top to make sure I was still covered and testing the bows on my shoulders to make sure they were still in place.

"Oh yes, dear one," Eric chuckled, his big hand cupping my jaw, his thumb tracing my lips. "You have a powerful bite when you are so motivated."

_You'd be a great vampire_ went unsaid.

I swung my legs down and crossed them, studying my unpainted toes as I did so. I felt at my hair and felt something poking me. I shifted to find the roses squashed under my fanny. I looked at them mournfully, but couldn't help smiling inside at what caused these to fall out of my hair.

I looked at Eric, still kneeling in front of me, rumpled and ready—really ready. I thought of how long I'd fought him, how he'd brought me back to life so recently and how I'd been so close to death because of him, too. I thought about how I ached for him when he wasn't here and, sometimes, even when he was. I thought how him being in my life brought me closer to death every day, and how fighting against this bond—blood bond or otherwise—made me miserable and energized me at once.

I didn't know what to do with him. I placed a hand on his shoulder and caressed his neck. I leaned in to kiss him.

Unbidden, I thought, _My duende_.

. .

. .

**A/N: ***peeks out* *clears throat* Uh, hey there. Anyone there still? An apology seems way too meager at this point, but I have to do it. I'm so sorry it's been more than 10 months since I updated. And I've been so touched by the sweet PMs I've received telling me how much you love the story and encouraging me to continue it. (And to the one person whose tone I misread-sorry about that, too.)

Believe it or not, I've been working on this chapter since the moment I posted the last one. I actually have had a draft for quite a while, but it was never quite right, and then all sorts of this got in the way. Some of them were ff related: I wrote a story for the Age of Eric Contest (Bitter Fruit, my Healing Blood side story, won honorable mention!). I wrote a piece for our FF friend Ali (also known by the Vampire Ladies of Twitter-we should totally get shiny pink bomber jackets that say that, btw, a la the Pink Ladies). I judged the I Write the Songs Contest.

Some were personal: In the last several months, I started dating again, I started dating men (which, surprise!, I'd never done before), I got a new job and I moved. Whew. I'm exhausted just writing this.

Anyway, all this is my way of explaining that I always intended to finish this, I never forgot about it and I love these guys. I still intend to finish this story, and I hope I'll get chapters up faster.

**Now, on this chapter:** First, a huge shout-out to my good buddy, my collaborator and my muse, , whose superior beta skills and unflagging encouragement made this chapter possible. If you're happy to see this story is back, thank us by going right now to read An End Has a Start, her stellar TB/SVM crossover story. It's so great. So much action and adventure and some hot scenes. And the best rendering of Sookie and Eric I've read in FF (sometimes better than CH, too, IMO). Actually, just do yourself a favor and read all her stories. She's got one in the works right now that's so amazing, I can't even form words. So good! Check her out.

Also, the dance: The dance Eric and Sookie do at the beginning of the chapter is extremely loosely based on the sarabande. If you look up on iTunes Folies D'Espana or Sarabande, you'll get a flavor for it, though most of those are from the Baroque Age-later than when Eric learned it and long after it had been made palatable for the delicate sensibilities of the ruling class. The first version, though, came from the colonies in South America and is listed on Wikipedia (so it must be true!) as so erotic it was outlawed for obscenity.

But that's where my research hit a dead end. Suffice to say, the dance that they actually do is completely cooked up by my and bears no resemblance to any dance, living or dead. It's just my excuse to paw the Viking. :)

Anyway, thanks for reading everyone. I really really appreciate it.

**Disclaimer:** Not mine. Don't sue.


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